About Jesus  -  Steve Sweetman

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An Elderly

Man
Speaks

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Dedication

 

Acknowledgement

 

Preface

 

The Format of This Book

 

Defining Biblical Words

 

Defining Theological Terms

 

Defining Greek Verb Tenses

 

Introduction

 

Lesson 1 (1 John 1:1 - 4)

 

Lesson 2 (1 John 1:5 - 7)

 

Lesson 3 (1 John 1:8 - 9)

 

Lesson 4 (1 John 1:10 - 2:2)

 

Lesson 5 (1 John 2:3 - 6)

 

Lesson 6 (1 John 2:7 - 11)

 

Lesson 7 (1 John 2:12 - 14)

 

Lesson 8 (1 John 2:15 - 17)

 

Lesson 9 (1 John 2:18 - 23)

 

Lesson 10 (1 John 2:24 - 29)

 

Lesson 11 (1 John 3:1 - 6)

 

Lesson 12 (1 John 3:7 - 10)

 

Lesson 13 (1 John 3:11 - 20)

 

Lesson 14 (1 John 3:21 - 24)

 

Lesson 15 (1 John 4:1 - 6)

 

Lesson 16 (1 John 4:7 - 12)

 

Lesson 17 (1 John 4:13 - 21)

 

Lesson 18 (1 John 5:1 - 12)

 

Lesson 19 (1 John 5:13 - 21)

 

The Character Qualities of a True Christian

 

Closing Remarks

 

About The Author 

The Biblical text used and quoted for this commentary is the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) as seen in the authorization statement below.

 

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

 

 

 

Dedication

 

I dedicate this book to Trevor Hoskins, my good friend, pastor, and brother in the Lord.  It was Trevor, back in 2018, who suggested I lead a Bible-study class on the apostle John's first letter, which I did in the spring of 2019.  This book is the result of my preparation for that class. 

 

Trevor has been instrumental and the driving force, along with the Lord Jesus, in establishing Harvest Ministries, in Belleville , Ontario , Canada .  You can find Harvest Ministries online at its web site:

www.harvest.coreinfo.ca

 

I also dedicate this book to my long-time friend and brother in the Lord, Timothy Foster .  He has been a gracious support to me over the decades.  He was by my side in the spring of 2019 when we led the Bible-study class on 1 John at Harvest Ministries.  He helped me immensely during the first John class and with the writing and completion of this book.  

 

I thank the Lord that He has brought both Trevor and Timothy into my life.              

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgements

 

I was raised in 1950's and 1960's style Evangelical Christianity with its specific approach to Biblical theology and practice.  Even though I was raised on Scripture, I have been a serious student of the Bible since 1970 and have gained my Biblical knowledge from multiple sources.  There would be far too many of these sources to name here.  However, as I have written this version of my commentary on 1 John, here in 2019, there are a few sources of Biblical instruction and commentary that I would especially like to acknowledge as having been of assistance to me as I have restudied this portion of the Bible.

 

I would highly recommend Dr. Bob Utley and his online commentaries on both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Both his written and audio commentaries can be found at: 

http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/

 

I would recommend F. F. Bruce's commentary on 1 John, published in e-book form by Kingsley Books Inc., in 2018.  The paperback version was published by F H Revell in 1971.  Bruce is considered to be one of the twentieth century's most important Evangelical Bible scholars. 

 

I also recommend the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John, written in 2014 by Karen H. Jobes and published by Zondervan.  

 

I acknowledge John Stott's commentary entitled "The Letters of John," book 19, of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series published by IVP Academic.  The paperback version was reprinted in 2009 while the e-book edition was published in 2014.   

 

Another book that helped contribute to my study in this commentary was "The Atonement," written by Leon Morris.  The book was published by IVP Academic in 1984.  The e-book was published by IVP Academic in 2012.

 

John Walton's "The Lost World of the Torah" provided much information that was helpful in compiling this commentary.  It was published in both book and e-book form by IVP Academic in 2019.  I recommend all of his books.     

 

Finally, I thank Timothy Foster , my long-time friend and brother in the Lord for all of his hard work, many hours of reviewing the content of this book, and, even some sleepless nights concerning the theological issues raised in John's first letter.  His effort was his attempt to help me complete this project to the best of our Bible-based understanding.  Timothy is one who always wants to get it right.  He was by my side during the spring of 2019 when I led a Bible study, on 1 John, that was the reason why I put my fingers to the keyboard to write this commentary.  Timothy helped me review the grammar and spelling, but beyond that, he has challenged me with many of the theological issues that are seen in 1 John, issues that many people fail to dig deep enough into to even begin to comprehend.  Everyone needs a Timothy Foster in his or her life.  It is what the Body of Christ, the church, is all about.  

 

 

   

Preface

 

It was January, 2019, when I first put my fingers to the keyboard and began to write this particular version of my commentary on the apostle John's first letter.  I did so in preparation for a Bible study that I led in the spring of 2019.  What you will read in the following pages is a product of my study.  

 

I admit that there are more scholarly and all-encompassing commentaries than mine, and that is fine.  My hope is to write a commentary that everyone - young, old, educated or uneducated, can easily understand and benefit from.  John's instructions are just as important today as they were when he first penned them, roughly nineteen hundred years ago.    

 

I also admit, that being a student of the Bible, I am always learning what the Bible has to say to us.  I, therefore, expect to have a better understanding of Biblical truth next year than I have this year.  This is always a problem with a Bible teacher.  He may teach something today, but as time goes on, he may have a clearer understanding of the subject matter.  He might even change his mind on what he once taught, and there is no problem with that.  We all must admit to our errors and move on.  Where the problem lies in writing a commentary is that, at a future date, I will surely have more accurate understanding of what you will read in this book.  The best I can do, or, the best any Bible teacher can do, is to teach what he presently knows, and that I will do in the following pages.  The best, then, that you can do, is for you to consider what I say as you study the Bible for yourself.      

 

When John penned this letter he was a very old man.  Allow me to suggest, especially that I might be considered an old man these days, that what elderly people pass along to the next generation before they die is important for the good health of the next generation.  By the time one is old, many things once considered important in life become irrelevant.  What remains are the vital issues of life that are worth paying close attention to.  This made the content of John's letter especially appropriate for his readers.  It is what makes what he wrote vitally important to us, who today, call ourselves followers of Jesus. 

 

I do not consider myself to be in the same theological league as the apostle Paul, but I do repeat what he told Timothy, his son in the Lord.  2 Timothy 2:7 says this:

 

"Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things."

 

So, consider what you read in this book as you continue to study Biblical truth for yourself.  I hope and pray that what you will discover in this commentary will be both instructive and inspiring.  

 

 

 

 

The Format of This Book

 

One important rule of Biblical interpretation, or hermeneutics, as it is called, is that we must understand to whom the author of any portion of Scripture was directing his thoughts.  Once knowing that, we must, then, attempt to understand his thoughts as he wanted them to be understood.  Far too often we approach Bible study with a twenty-first-century mindset.  We define words and concepts based on our present cultural usages and definitions.  This more often than not misrepresents the Biblical author's intent, and thus, we misunderstand, and then misapply, what the text says. 

 

The Bible was written over a span of several centuries in languages and cultural settings few of us know anything about today.  For this reason, some knowledge of the relevant ancient languages and the cultures in which they were spoken or written will assist us immensely in our attempt to understand Biblical truth.   

 

Once we feel somewhat confident, if we can ever be fully confident, in knowing what the author was telling his readers, we can then see how it applies to us today.  It is for this reason that I have chosen the format of this commentary. 

 

For the text to be studied, I will first quote it from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB).  I will then comment on the text.  After that, I will provide a short review of the text and then suggest some present-day applications from what was learned from the text. 

 

If you read this book from beginning to end you will note at times I am somewhat repetitious.  I repeat myself because, when it comes to reading commentaries, we tend to look up a particular verse to read what the commentator has written about that verse.  We do not always read the entire commentary from cover to cover.  That forces the commentator to be repetitious since certain words and concepts appear in many verses throughout any portion of Scripture.  If I leave a comment out because I have commented on it elsewhere, you will fail to understand the full meaning of the verse you are referencing.              

 

Before we even get started looking at the text of 1 John, I will define certain words and some theological concepts that will arise during our study.  These definitions, hopefully, will help you better understand what the text is saying when the words and concepts arise in John's letter. 

 

The New Testament was originally written in common, every-day, street-level, first-century, Greek.  That Greek differed from what has been commonly called "Classical Greek."   At times, therefore, I will make reference to certain Greek words and their meanings to help explain a text.  I will also make reference to certain Greek verb tenses in an easy to understand way.  I will define a few, but not all, Greek verb tenses, so that, when we encounter them, you will have already been briefed on them.  Both the meaning of words and verb tenses as they were used in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world help us understand the Biblical text.  I will attempt to simplify such issues that some might call complicated.  

 

Here is an example of what I am saying.  John 3:16 is one of the most well-known verses in the Bible.  In this verse, John said that God loved the world so much that He sent His Son into the world.  Whosoever would believe in Jesus, God's Son, would not perish but have everlasting life.  Here is John 3:16 from the CSB version of the Bible.  It reads:

 

"For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

 

If you understand this verse to be referring to "everyone" who mentally acknowledges the reality of Jesus' existence, and especially His divinity, which is the understanding based on today's cultural definition of the word "believe," then you will have misunderstood John 3:16. 

 

The Greek verb translated as "believes" is "pisteuo."   This word has little to do with mentally acknowledging the reality of Jesus' existence.  This Greek word means "to trust."  It does not mean "to give mental assent to" something.  Because this Greek verb is a present active participle, and don't let that scare you, John was saying this:  everyone who is a present-day trusting-one in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life.  The verb tense emphasizes one who is a trusting-one and not one who simply trusts from time to time.  It emphasizes that one, by his very nature, is a trusting one.   You may have to think that through for a while.  One becomes a trusting-one because he has become a new creation in Christ, as seen in 2 Corinthians 5:17.   He trusts his life with Jesus because, by virtue of his brand new nature in Christ, he is a trusting-one. 

 

What I have just said is vital to the gospel message we are to proclaim to the culture around us.  The emphasis on trusting one’s life with Jesus, means more than acknowledging His existence.  Mental assent or acknowledgement of the Biblical Jesus saves no one.  Even the demons acknowledge Jesus' existence, and they tremble, according to James 2:19.  Trusting your life with Jesus is what saves a person.  Being a present-day truster-in-Jesus, if I can say it that way, is what saves you.  That is what John 3:16 is all about.   

 

Moving onto a new point, Daniel 12:4 says that as this age draws closer to an end, "knowledge will increase."  No one will argue over the truth of that statement.  Knowledge is increasing exponentially, and that includes historical, cultural, and linguistic knowledge of the days in which the Bible was originally penned.  All this new insight helps us to understand the Biblical text today better than we understood it years ago.  It is for this reason that you may find some variations between older versions of the Bible and newer versions of the Bible.  Hundreds more Biblical manuscripts have been discovered since the King James Bible came into existence in 1611.  These additional manuscripts provide us with a more accurate rendering of certain Bible verses.  I mention this now because this issue will come to the forefront in our study of 1 John and will have to be addressed.          

 

Studying and interpreting the Bible, as I will do in the following pages, is a matter of what is called "hermeneutics."  That word seems to scare people these days, but it shouldn't.  Hermeneutics as applied to Biblical study is an attempt to understand the Bible as its original authors meant it to be understood.  That is not an easy task.  Trying to get into the mind of a man who wrote hundreds of years ago, in a culture and language unfamiliar to most of us, is a difficult task, but it is a task I am attempting to undertake in the following pages.     

 

 

Defining Biblical Words

 

Before we study the text of 1 John it will be helpful to have certain words defined that appear in John's letter.  Without a basic understanding of these words, you will not completely grasp what John wanted his readers, and us as well, to know.  These words are in no particular order.     

 

Christ

 

The word "Christ" is translated into English from the Greek word "christos."  Christos means "anointed one."  This word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world where John lived.  If someone was installed into a specific role in the community, let us say as a judge, he could have been considered a "christos." 

 

When thinking of Jesus as being the Christos, or the Anointed One, He was so designated by God His Father to fulfill His Messianic role and mission while He was on earth. 

 

The Old Testament Hebrew word "meshiyach" is translated into English as "Messiah."  This Hebrew word is synonymous with the Greek word "christos" and our English word "Christ."  In John 1:32 we note that Jesus was publically declared to be the Christ, or the Messiah, when John the Baptist baptized Him in water.   This public declaration was made by the voice from heaven when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus.

 

In our study of 1 John our first encounter with the word "Christ" as it applies to Jesus is in 1 John 1:3.  Right at the beginning of his letter John addressed this most important issue, as it pertained to Jesus. 

 

Anoint

 

The Greek word "eleipho" is translated into English as "anoint."  This Greek word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  It was a general-usage term that meant "to pour," as one pours oil on the head of someone to install him into a particular office or place of responsibility.     

 

As this word pertains to Jesus, He had the Holy Spirit poured on Him on the occasion when He was baptized in water, as seen in John 1:32.  He was, therefore, anointed with the Holy Spirit to perform His Messianic duties on earth.  This anointing was confirmed when the voice from heaven declared Him to be the Son of God whom God, His Father, loved.  See Luke 3:22.  

 

When a believer receives the Holy Spirit into his life, it is said that he has been anointed with the Holy Spirit.  This is seen in Acts 2:2 when one hundred and twenty believers received the Holy Spirit into their lives by means of the Spirit being poured out on them from heaven.  Peter confirmed this in Acts 2:33. 

 

As it pertains to the reception of the Spirit into one's being, the term "poured out" is used throughout the book of Acts.  The process of salvation, thus, must include receiving the Holy Spirit into one's life.   Without this anointing, there is no salvation.  The apostle Paul made that perfectly clear in Romans 8:9.  We will come back to this verse many times in this commentary. 

 

Our English word "anoint" does not appear in John's first letter.  However, the word "anointing" does appear in 1 John 2:20 and 27.  We will address this issue when we see what John said about the relationship between the believer and the Holy Spirit.         

 

Fellowship

 

The word "fellowship" is translated from the Greek word "koinonia."  Koinonia means "to hold something in common with others."  In terms of being a Christian, Christians hold many things in common with each other, but the most important thing they hold in common is the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit living within the individual believer that unites the believers in Christian fellowship. 

 

The word "fellowship," as seen in the New Testament, is the sharing of one's life with those to whom Jesus, by His Spirit, has placed him alongside in the Body of Christ, otherwise known as the church.  New Testament fellowship is more than the getting together for a friendly conversation with others, which is commonly called fellowship today.

 

You will read the word "fellowship" three times in the CSB version of John's first letter.  It first appears in 1 John 1:3 and is vital in understanding the relationship that the Christian has with God and his brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Wrath

 

Wrath, as it applies to God is something the modern-day Christian is thinking less about, but it is one very important Biblical subject.  Wrath is a very strong, and I might add, explosive, anger.  God's wrath cannot be compared with man's wrath.  Man's wrath is mixed with a multitude of sinful emotions, like retaliation and hatred.  This is not so with God.  His wrath is based on a pure and divine revulsion of sin.  It is clear from the New Testament as well as from the Old Testament that God still does, and will, exhibit wrath against sinfulness.  God's justice demands that His wrath be so exhibited.  If God does not demonstrate wrath, He goes against all of who He is.  God is just, and not demonstrating His sense of justice defies who He is.  Although the word "wrath" does not appear in 1 John, we will need to address the wrath of God when we study 1 John 2:1 and 2, and, 1 John 4:10.    

 

Propitiation

 

The word "propitiation" that is found in the KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB, is translated from the Greek word "hilasmos."  This Greek word is also found in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.  Other translations of the New Testament translate this Greek word differently, and they do so, partly based on the translator's  theology.  The CSB version of the New Testament that I am using for this study translates "hilasmos" into the words "atoning sacrifice."  Some other versions of the New Testament translate "hilasmos" as expiation.   

 

In simple terms, and, as it applies to God's dealing with humans, "propitiation," or its Greek equivalent "hilasmos," means "the removal of God's wrath from the life of the believer."  Propitiation differs from expiation in that propitiation removes God's wrath from a person while expiation removes the sin from the heavenly record, or, from the mind of God.    

 

The Greek word "hilasmos" that is translated as "atoning sacrifice" in the CSB version of the New Testament was a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religiously pagan world.  In pagan religions of the day, a pagan would have felt the need to do something, which to us would be a bribe, to remove the wrath of the gods from his life.  Whatever he did to remove the wrath of the gods was considered to be a propitiation, or as the CSB puts it, an atoning sacrifice. 

 

In terms of being a Christian, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross removed Gods wrath from the lives of those who would subsequently give their lives to Him.  In theological terms, Jesus' death on the cross was called a "hilasmos,” or, "atoning sacrifice," as the CSB reads.  It was a propitiation. 

 

Unlike with pagan religions, the Christian believer does nothing to remove God's wrath from his life.  Jesus has done all that is necessary in this respect.  There is nothing else that can be done.  Jesus said it best.  While on the cross He said: "it is finished" (John 19:30).  All that was necessary to remove God's wrath was completely finished when Jesus gave his human life on the cross. 

 

I will address propitiation when I comment on 1 John 2:2.            

 

 

Advocate

 

The word "advocate" is translated from the Greek word "parakletos."  This Greek word means "to be called alongside of another."  When a woman marries a man, she is called alongside of her husband.  In connection with Jesus, He, after His ascension, was called alongside of God His Father for a number of reasons.  The point to be made here is that one is called alongside another for a specific reason or reasons, and Jesus is no exception to this. 

 

Christians are also called alongside of other Christians in the Body of Christ for support and ministry, as can be seen in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14.

 

We will address this word when we come to 1 John 2:1.

 

Sin

 

The word "sin" is translated from the Greek word "hamartia."  This word means "to miss the mark."  Although there are a few definitions of sin that can be found in the Bible, due to the meaning of "hamartia" as being missing the mark, the fundamental definition of sin is "to miss the mark for all that God requires us to do and to be." 

 

The apostle Paul expressed this meaning of sin in Romans 3:23 when he said that all of us have sinned by falling short of the glory of God.  Falling short of God's glory in our lives means "to miss the mark" of His glory.  

 

We will encounter the word "sin" in 1 John 1:7 when John addressed that issue. 

 

Righteousness

 

The Greek word "dikalos" is translated as "righteous" in the New Testament.  Evangelical Christians often understand righteousness in terms of good moral or ethical behaviour, and that it is.  When thinking of righteousness in those terms, we consider one who is righteous as one who lives a good, moral, or ethical lifestyle.  There is, however, a more fundamental understanding of righteousness than that. 

 

The most fundamental definition of righteousness is "to be in right standing."  As righteousness pertains to a Christian's relationship with God, one is righteous when God declares him to be in right standing with Himself.  Righteousness, then, is a status that is given to, or conferred on, the believer from God.  From this status, the secondary meaning of righteousness is better understood.  One, who has been declared righteous by God, is expected, with the empowering assistance of the Holy Spirit, to live as one who has the status of being righteous. 

 

More often than not, Evangelical Christians have put the cart before the horse, so to speak, on this matter.  We have stressed righteousness as one being morally and ethically good.  This puts the emphasis on doing works that make us morally and ethically good.  It makes one feel that he must be doing good works to maintain one's right standing before God.  It de-emphasizes, or even neglects, the presupposition that the one who is expected to live righteously has first been declared righteous.  He has been declared righteous by nothing he has done.  This declaration is a free gift based on God's grace and trusting the One who has given the gift.       

 

The Biblical fact of the matter is that there is no person who is both morally and ethically right in all of his ways.  Jeremiah 17:9 states that the heart of man is so sinful that man has no comprehension of how sinful his heart and life really is.  God, therefore, has been gracious to us in that He declares the believer to be righteous, even as He Himself is righteous.  In other words, God declares the believer to be something he is not.  This declaration is based on the fact that Jesus both received the punishment for our unrighteousness and He lived the perfect righteous life on our behalf.    

 

This righteousness is conferred on the person when he or she repents of his sinfulness, hands his life over to Jesus in faith or trust, and, receives the Holy Spirit into his life.  

 

I will comment on righteousness when the subject comes up in 1 John 1:9.

 

Forgive

 

The Greek word "aphiemi" is translated into English as "forgive."  This was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  It was an accounting term used in every-day business practices.  The word meant to delete a financial debt that one owed to another. 

 

In Christian terms, forgiveness is the process by which the debt of our sin is deleted from God's records.  It is important to know that all sin, no matter who is the victim of the sin, is considered to be a sin against God.  Our sin incurs a debt that we owe to God.  It is for this reason that the CSB, the KJV, and other versions of the Bible, expresses sin as a debt in the Lord's Prayer.  See Matthew 6:12.  "Forgive our debts" in the Lord's Prayer means "forgive our sins."  It means to delete all sins associated with us from the heavenly record.  

 

We will have to address the topic of forgiveness when we study 1 John 1:9.

Cleanse

 

The Greek word "katharizo" is translated into English as "cleanse" in the New Testament.  This word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  It meant to clean, as in cleaning or washing the stain that dirt left on one's clothes. 

 

The concept of cleansing as John used it in his letter was in reference to the blood of Jesus cleansing the believer from the stain that sin left in his life, a stain that was quite visible in the sight of God.  The idea of blood being a cleaning agent was seen in the Old Testament blood sacrifices.  Those Old Testament blood sacrifices did not take away sin from God's records.  They merely cleaned the stain of sin from one's life.  These blood sacrifices also cleaned the stain of sin from the Jewish community, and all that pertained to the tabernacle or temple of God . 

 

The topic of cleansing first appears in John's letter in 1 John 1:7 through 9.  

 

Love

 

There are many Greek words that can be translated into English as love, each having their own distinct meaning.  The Greek word that John consistently used throughout his letter is the Greek word "agape."  This word emphasizes the sacrificial nature of true love. 

 

In Christian terms, Jesus sacrificed His earthly life on the cross for our benefit.  His death was the ultimate act of sacrificial love ever seen, or ever will be seen, in human history.  It is this sacrificial love that John said must be demonstrated among the Christian believers.  

 

The word "agape" went out of general usage in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world, so, the Christians adopted the word "agape" to refer to God's selfless love.  It is for this reason that Christians today tend to understand the Greek word "agape" to mean God's love.

 

The word "love" appears 24 times in most modern versions of 1 John.     

 

Believe

 

The Greek noun "pistis" (its verbal equivalent is "pisteuo") is translated into our English New Testament as "faith," "belief," "believe," or "trust."  In Biblical terms, as it applies to faith in Jesus, faith or belief is more than giving mental assent to the historic existence of Jesus.  It is even more than acknowledging the fact that Jesus, while on earth, was God in human form, although that is a first step in the process of Biblical believing as defined in New Testament terms. 

 

The Greek noun "pistis" means "trust."  The Greek verb "pisteuo" means "to trust."  In terms of our relationship with Jesus, the word "faith" or the word "belief" is the assurance that we have trusted Jesus with our entire lives.  Faith is being secure in knowing that, once we hand our lives over to Jesus, we can rest in knowing that He will care for as us He wishes.  We can trust that His will is best for us.    

 

The word "believe" occurs three times in 1 John.  Its first occurrence is in 1 John 3:23.    

 

Justice 

 

In our modern-day, western-world concept of legal justice, the process of exercising justice is based on legislation, law, and legal precedent.  You might think that God's justice is also based on legislation, law, and legal precedent that have been set forth in Scripture.  I do not believe that to be the case.  God exercises His justice based on His nature.  He, by virtue of who He is, is just, and for that reason, He pronounces just decrees. 

 

We claim that God is love, and that He is.  In like manner, we should also claim that God is just.  He is the epitome of justice.  It is for this reason that God does not exercise justice based on legislation, law, or legal precedent.  He bases His acts of justice on who He is, and who He is, without any hint of prejudice, is perfectly just.  

 

We will first see the topic of God's justice in 1 John 1:9.       

      

Confess

 

The Greek word "homolegeo" is translated into English in the New Testament as "confess."  This Greek word is made up of "homo," meaning the same, and "legeo," meaning to speak.  In Biblical terms, confession means to "speak the same thing that God speaks."  It means agreeing with God on all matters, which, as John said in his letter, is fundamental to Christian doctrine and living, especially when thinking of confessing sin.  In terms of sin, confession is agreeing with how God defines sin, not how we or our culture defines sin.  We will see this in 1 John 1:9. 

 

Know

 

You might wonder why the word "know" needs to be defined, but in Biblical terms, it does need special attention.  Obviously, part of knowing something is knowing about that something, but there is more to knowing than knowing about something. 

 

In both the Old and New Testaments our English word "know" has a secondary meaning.  In Biblical terms, to know someone is to have a personal, even intimate, relationship with that someone.  For example, in the Old Testament, if a husband and wife knew each other, in many instances that meant they had sexual intimacy with each other.  In Genesis 4:1 we note that Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived Cain. 

 

A secondary meaning to knowing God, then, is to have a personal, even intimate, relationship with Him.  Just knowing the facts about God does not constitute knowing Him personally.  This Biblical definition of the word "know" as it pertains to God is vital in understanding what John wrote in his letter since he used the word "know" quite often.  As a matter of fact, John used this word 22 times in his first letter, the first of which is in 1 John 2:3.

 

Church

 

Although John did not use the English word "church" (ekklesia in Greek) in his first letter, he did use it three times in his third letter.  He also did not use the word "church" in his gospel account.  It is the apostle Paul who incorporated the Greek word "ekklesia" into New Testament theology. 

 

In the first-century, Greco-Roman, world, an ekklesia was a group of people who were called out of the general public for a specific purpose.  A governing parliament could have been considered an ekklesia. 

 

In Christian terms, the church is an ekklesia because Jesus has called out its members from the general public to belong to Him and fulfill His will on earth.  We should not understand church to be a building as is often the case today.  We should also not view church to simply be an organization, although in some respects it is that.  Church is a living organism.  It is the community of real people belonging to Jesus.  It is what the apostle Paul called the Body of Christ throughout 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 and elsewhere. 

 

It is my assertion that the term "Body of Christ" is not a figurative term.  I believe that the church, the Body of Christ, is in fact the replacement body of Jesus here on earth.  Since Jesus is no longer on earth in physical form, the church, that houses the Spirit of Christ, is His replacement body on earth.

 

Although John does not use the Greek word "ecclesia" in his letter, the concept can be seen throughout his letter.      

         

Antichrist

 

The apostle John is the only New Testament author who used the word "antichrist" in his writings.  John used the word in two ways.  He understood that there would be a man, who he called the antichrist, who would rise to world-wide prominence at the end of this present age.  The antichrist would oppose all things that pertain to Jesus and would promote himself as being God, and thus, to be worshipped as God. 

 

John also used the term in a present-day sense when he said that there were many people, who were not "the antichrist," but had the spirit of the antichrist, on the world scene as he penned his letter.

 

Some Bible teachers suggest that there are up to thirty-three different titles that can be found in the Bible that are attributed to the man John called the antichrist.  In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul called him 'the man of sin" and "the lawless one."    

 

John wrote about the antichrist and the spirit of antichrist in chapters 2 and 4 of his first letter.

 

 

 

Defining Theological Terms

 

There will be certain theological terms, and doctrines, that will naturally arise throughout our study of 1 John.  These doctrines have been formulated by Christian theologians over the centuries to help explain concepts found in the Bible.  A basic understanding of some of these doctrines will be helpful in our attempt to understand what John was writing in his letter.  I will now explain a few of these theological terms.

 

Born Again

 

The doctrine of being born again finds its origins in John 3:1 through 6 where Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again.  Being born again is the process by which the Holy Spirit comes into a person's very being and which causes him, as the apostle Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5:17, to become a brand new creation.  As one is born into the material world, so one can be born into the spiritual world.  The Holy Spirit's entrance into one's being is the doorway into the spiritual world. 

 

It is the apostle John, the author of 1, 2, 3 John, the gospel of John, and of the book of Revelation, who wrote about the concept of being born again.  It was the revival preachers of the 1700's and 1800's that brought this doctrine into the forefront of Protestant Christianity, a Christianity that, despite the Reformation, became liturgical and lifeless.  It is one of the fundamental teachings of what has come to be known as the Evangelical Church .   

 

John wrote about being born of God in 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 5:4, and 5:18. 

 

Justification

 

Justification is the process by which God has declared those who have accepted Jesus' offer of forgiveness of sin to be righteous, just as He Himself is righteous.  The apostle Paul was the New Testament author who expounded upon this doctrine in his letters to the Romans and to the Galatians. 

 

The doctrine of justification was lost from much of Christian theology during the period of history known as the Dark Age of church history.  This period was roughly from 400 AD to 1500 AD.  It was Martin Luther (born 1483 - died 1586) and other Reformation theologians in the sixteenth-century who, at least in part, began to restore the doctrine of justification to its New Testament meaning. 

 

John alludes to the doctrine of justification when he speaks of forgiveness and righteousness in 1 John 1:9.  

Sanctification

 

Sanctification is the process by which the Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the Word of God, and the cooperation of the believer, enables the believer to become more completely dedicated to Jesus.  This in turn would cause the believer to sin less as he matured in the Lord. 

 

Like the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of sanctification had been lost during the Dark Age of church history.  It was John Wesley (born 1703 - died 1791) and his associates who, at least in part, began to restore the doctrine of sanctification back into Christian theology.  The doctrine was called "Entire Sanctification" and became of fundamental doctrine in the Methodist Movement. Some of John Wesley's followers believed that a Christian could become sinless.  Wesley himself said that a certain few might reach the state of what he called "Sinless Perfection" as they drew close to death

 

The apostle John spoke about the issue of one's dedication to Jesus and His truth in 1 John 1:5 through 7.  

        

Eternal Security

 

Eternal Security is the doctrine that states that once a person is saved, he cannot be unsaved.  Those who oppose eternal security teaching believe that one can lose his or her salvation.  It was John Calvin (born 1509 - died 1564) who introduced and popularized the doctrine of Eternal Security in Protestant Christian theology.  This doctrine became a fundamental teaching within many Baptist denominations. 

 

The subject of Eternal Security will arise when we study 1 John 2:24 through 27.

 

Trinity  

 

In simple terms, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one in His essence and nature but consists of three distinct personalities.  This is a difficult concept to comprehend. 

 

The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated, with variations, over a span of a couple of hundred years; roughly from 400 to 600 AD.  It took much debate, division, and dissention among church leaders to reach some kind of consensus on the nature and essence of God, and even then there were differences in thinking.  The debate and division remain to this very day in parts of the church.  

 

A discussion will arise over the Trinity when we look into what John said in 1 John 5:6 through 8, especially as we note the discrepancy between the King James Bible and newer translations of the Bible.

 

Prophetic Futurism

 

Prophetic Futurism is the view of prophetic history that states the book of Revelation is yet to be fulfilled in human history.  This subject arises when John addressed the issue of the antichrist. This end-time, internationally-esteemed, satanic, leader known as the "beast" in Revelation 13 is called the antichrist by John in 1 John 2:18, 2:22, and 4:3.   

 

Initial Salvation

 

I understand the Bible to speak of salvation in terms of a process.  As I will point out in this commentary, the New Testament's concept of personal salvation can be seen in three distinct verb tenses.  They are as follows:  I was saved.  I am being saved, and, I will be saved.  When thinking in terms of being saved at one point in time, that is a process, which consists of repentance, faith, and the reception of the Holy Spirit into one's life.  That process, I call "initial salvation."  Others may call it "being born again," or "being converted," or, other such wordings.  Initial salvation is the point in which one gets saved, and enters the life-long process of salvation that finds its completion, when as the apostle John said, "we will be like Jesus" at His return to earth (1 John 3:2). 

 

 

 

Defining Greek Verb Tenses

 

The New Testament was written in first-century, every-day, street-level, Greek that is called "Koine Greek."   The Greek written in the New Testament was not what has been called "Classical Greek."  Throughout centuries theologians were somewhat confused concerning the Greek they read in the New Testament because it was not written in Classical Greek, which they were familiar with.  Because of this unfamiliar Greek, some of those theologians in past centuries even concluded that New Testament Greek had to have been some kind of special Holy Spirit-inspired Greek. 

 

It was not until the last couple of hundred years when everyday first-century writings were unearthed and discovered that scholars began to understand that the New Testament was written in the ordinary, street-level Greek of the day, and that was not the Classical Greek found in other first-century, Greco-Roman, literature.  For this reason New Testament scholarship has been greatly enhanced over the last century and a half.        

 

To the degree, then, we can begin to understand Koine Greek and its cultural usage will be the degree to which we can best understand what the New Testament has to tell us, and that includes what John said in his first letter. 

The most common mistake Christians make in interpreting the Bible is that we base our interpretive conclusions on our western-world, twenty-first century, cultural mindset, with its definition of words and concepts.  In other words, we define Biblical words and concepts in the way we think about them today, and not in the way the original authors thought about them.  For this reason our interpretations of Biblical concepts often do not reflect what the Bible writers intended us to know. 

 

Understanding the meaning of first-century Greek words and how they were used back then helps us understand the Biblical content.  Understanding Koine Greek grammar will help us understand what we need to know of the Bible.  For this reason I will now briefly explain just three Greek verb tenses that John used throughout his letter.  Obviously there are other Koine Greek verb tenses we could look into, but if you can grasp these three, they will enhance your understanding of what you read in 1 John. 

 

I hope this chapter will not scare you away from the study in the following pages.  My desire and prayer is to make complicated issues simple for all to understand.  If you take the effort to think through what I am about to say concerning these three Greek verb tenses, it will help you immensely in understanding what I write in the following pages. 

 

Present Participle

 

The word "present" in Greek present participle means that the action described in a sentence is in present time.  A "participle" is a word that is both a noun and a verb.  This means the emphasis is not just in the action being undertaken in the sentence.  It emphasizes the one doing the action as well as the action itself.   A Greek present participle, therefore, indicates a continuous action performed by someone based on who he is as a person.  For example, an auto-mechanic fixes cars because he is an auto-mechanic.  The action of fixing cars is based on the fact that the one who fixes cars, by virtue of who he is, is an auto-mechanic.  In contrast, not everyone who fixes a car is an auto-mechanic.    

 

Here is one example of how John used the present participle.  1 John 2:22 says this:

 

"Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son."

 

The word "denies" in the phrase "the one who denies ..." is a Greek present participle.  Being a present participle, means that the person spoken of here is not just one who denies occasionally.  Anyone can deny every so often.  The apostle Peter denied Jesus at one point in his life.  The one John spoke of, here, denies because he is, by his very nature, a denier.  He constantly denies because the essence of who he is, is a denier.  Peter denied Jesus, but he, by virtue of who he was, was not a denier.  The present Greek participle emphasizes, not just what someone does, but what one does because of who he is.

 

Perfect Indicative Verb

 

A perfect indicative Greek verb in a sentence indicates an action that has taken place in past time and has present-day, certain, implications.  Here is one example of how John used this verb tense.  1 John 2:20 reads:  

 

"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."

 

The word "know" in the phrase "all of you know the truth" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.  The perfect tense means that those to whom John was speaking came to know the truth in the past and they still knew the truth when he penned this letter.  The indicative part of this Greek verb indicates that John's readers knowing of the truth was a present, and definite, certainty.   

 

Present Imperative Verb

 

The present imperative Greek verb tense indicates an action that is commanded or mandated in present time.  Here is an example of how John used this verb tense.  1 John 2:15 reads:

 

"Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

 

The verb "do not love" is a present imperative Greek verb.  This means that John strongly admonished his readers to not love this world.  This was not a suggestion for them to think about and mull over in their minds.  The word "imperative" tells us that this was more a command than anything else, and a command to be obeyed in present time.    

   

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Authorship

 

There is no real debate among Evangelical Christian Bible scholars over who penned this letter.  It was written by John.  There is, however, debate over which John it was who actually wrote the letter.  The majority opinion, to which I hold, is that the disciple and apostle of Jesus named John wrote this letter as well as 2 John, 3 John, the gospel of John, and the book of Revelation.  The minority opinion is that the "elder John" who was an elder in the church in Ephesus and who was not the apostle John, wrote this letter.  Those holding to this second opinion distinguish between John the apostle, who knew Jesus personally, and John the elder of the church in Ephesus , who lived at the end of the first century.  They claim that there were two different John's.  

 

I hold to the majority opinion for at least two reasons.  The first reason is that the content of this letter and the content of the gospel of John, which most scholars believe was written by the apostle John who personally knew Jesus, are extremely similar in their theology, wording, and content. 

 

The second reason for my opinion is that some early second-century Christian leaders claimed that the apostle John was the elder John who ended up living in the city of Ephesus near the end of the first century.  One early second-century Christian leader was a man named Polycarp (born 69 AD - died 155 AD).  He was a disciple of the apostle John.  Polycarp claimed that John the elder who lived in Ephesus was John the apostle who knew Jesus in person. 

 

Papias was another second-century Christian leader (born 70 AD - died 163 AD).  In his writings he associated the elder John with Peter, James, and other original disciples of Jesus, thus intimating that the elder John (presbyteros in Greek meaning older man) as being the apostle John.   

 

Concerning Papias, you should know that we do not have any of his original writings.  What we do have are quotes of Papias in the writings of Irenaeus (born around 120 AD - died around 202 AD).  Irenaeus was an important Christian apologist in the second century.  By the second half of the second century when Irenaeus wrote his books defending the Christian faith, the majority opinion was that John who was the apostle of Jesus was also the elder John.       

 

I have said that John was an elder in the church at Ephesus .  Many say that he was the lead elder in the church of Ephesus .  Traditionally speaking, Bible teachers have often called John the "bishop of Ephesus ."  I do not use the word "bishop" in respect to John because of what I call the "ecclesiastical baggage" concerning that word that stems from the dark age of the church in centuries past, which by the way, is still prevalent in many sectors of the church today. 

 

In today's ecclesiastical terminology, a bishop is a church leader with authority over a large geographical area that includes several congregations.  This is sometimes called "trans-local authority."  I question the idea that John held some kind of official trans-local ecclesiastical authority over a large geographical region.  However, John was certainly well respected across the Christian landscape in those days because he was the last of the original apostles.  For that reason Christians across the known world would have esteemed John above all other church leaders of the day.  However you view this is fine with me.  We all can agree that John was one very important Christian leader, if not the most important Christian leader, at the end of the first-century.          

 

About John    

 

John was a Jew, who in his younger days, lived in the Roman province of Galilee .  The fact that he was both an ethnic Jew and a religious Jew is important.  His Jewish religious heritage is easily seen in what he wrote in this letter.  Two such religious concepts are the cleansing by blood (1 John 1:7) and atoning sacrifice (1 John 2:2). 

 

When John penned this letter he lived in the Roman city of Ephesus .  This fact is also important because many of John's readers would have been Gentiles, and thus, there are Gentile religious concepts that can be seen in John's letter.  One example of this is seen in John telling his readers that there is no fear in love.  See 1 John 4:18.  Greco-Roman, religious pagans feared their gods, but this was not to be the case with Christians.  John made it clear that the Christian, especially the Gentile Christian, had no need to be afraid of his God.        

 

John was one of the original disciples and apostles of Jesus.  He has been forever known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  He is so known because that is how he described himself in John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, and 21:20.  Not that Jesus had favourites but it appears to me that Jesus' and John's personalities were such that they became close friends. 

 

John had a brother named James (Matthew 17:1, Mark 5:37) and a father named Zebedee (Luke 5:10).  John and his brother James were fishermen (Luke 5:8 - 11). 

 

John outlived all of the other original apostles.  He could easily have been seventy to eighty five years old when he wrote this letter, and most likely closer to eighty five years old than seventy years old.  This is important because an older person has much wisdom to pass along to the next generation.  Many things an elderly person once thought to be important are no longer important in old age.  Only the real important issues of life are important when you are standing before death's door.  This was especially the case in John's day when an older person was more respected than he or she is today.  So, because John was an elderly man, what he has written needs our undivided attention.           

 

Ephesus

 

The city of Ephesus , where John spent the last part of his life, was one of the most important cities of the first-century, Roman, province named Asia .  It was a city noted for its commerce, its religion, and its cultural significance. 

 

The province of Asia was one of the most economically prosperous and influential provinces of the day in the Roman Empire .  This province was located on the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea in what is presently known as Turkey .  Ephesus was located at the far western side of Asia, on the shore of what is now called the Aegean Sea .    

Date of the letter

 

John's letter was written somewhere between 60 and 100 AD.  The majority opinion is that it was written somewhere between 85 and 100 AD, and probably closer to 100 AD.   For a number of reasons, that I would call speculative and motivated by a particular view of end-time prophecy, some think that John wrote this letter prior to 70 AD.  I believe this letter should be dated between 85 and 100 AD. 

 

One reason why I think this letter was written close to the end of the first century is because the heresies addressed by John in this letter began to influence the church during that period of time.  These specific heresies were not prevalent earlier in the century.  

 

Another reason for me dating this letter close to the end of the first century is due to the fact that some second-century church leaders believed that to be the case, as seen in their writings.  

     

Setting and background for the letter

 

It did not take long for heresy to set into the church.  False doctrine was prevalent within the first generation of the Christian church.  The apostle Paul's letters to the Corinthians and to the Galatians show this to be true.  As the first century drew closer to its end, with a third generation of Christians, there were a few heresies that were dividing the church.  This is the occasion, background, and the reason why John would have written this letter.  It is necessary to understand this in order to fully comprehend the letter's content.  

 

I have said that historic tradition tells us that John lived in the city of Ephesus near the end of the first century.  The apostle Paul had a sober warning to the elders of the church at Ephesus some thirty to forty years prior to John writing this letter. In Acts 20:29 Paul predicted that savage wolves would come into the church at Ephesus and would not spare the flock.  Paul was obviously right in his prediction, and thus, the reason for John's letter.      

 

One heresy concerned the nature of Jesus.  One promoter of this heresy was a man named Cerinthus, who also lived in Ephesus .  The heresy stated that Jesus was just a man whom the Christ Spirit came on at his baptism and left just prior to his crucifixion.  The heresy was influenced by the Greco-Roman philosophy of the day that stated that anything material is evil and that anything spiritual is good.  For this reason God could not have birthed Himself into a human material body.  God, therefore, created a heavily host of beings of whom the Christ spirit was the leader.  This Christ spirit came upon the human man named Jesus when John the Baptist baptized Him in water and then left Him before his crucifixion. 

 

Another variation of this heresy stated that the Jesus who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea was a phantom Jesus.  He was not human.  If He walked on the sand, He would not even leave a footprint.  This Jesus could not be touched because he had no material existence, and thus we will see the reason for John's opening statement.   In other words, this Jesus that was proclaimed by the heretics was a ghost.   

 

Both of these false ideas about Jesus are a major departure from what John and others taught.  They destroyed the meaning of the cross of Christ, the resurrection, and Jesus' return to heaven.  They deny what the angel Gabriel told Mary in Luke 1:28 and following.  There, Mary was told by Gabriel that she would conceive one who would be called the Son of the Most High.  She would conceive her son, not by natural processes, but by the power of the Almighty who would come upon her.  Clearly, Jesus was fully God and fully human from the precise moment He was miraculously conceived in Mary's womb.

 

The apostle Paul wrote about the true nature and essence of Jesus when he said that all of who God is, lives in Jesus.  Colossians 2:9 says this:  

 

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily ..."

 

Another heresy that divided the church at the end of the first-century was the redefining of what constituted sin.  Because of the pagan belief that material things are evil and spiritual things are good, some believed that their real person was spiritual.  Their bodies were just temporary suitcases to house their real self.  Those holding to this view were very elitist.  They viewed themselves as being special and holier than the others.  They actually believed they did not sin.  That is to say, their real person, their spiritual self, did not sin, although their material person did sin.  They ignored the sin of their material self because they believed that was not their real self.  As a matter of fact, those holding to this view actually enjoyed indulging in their material sin.  

 

We will see that John addressed both of the above heresies in his letter.  He did so to re-affirm to his Christian readers what was God's truth.  Part of why John would have written this letter would have been to minimize any confusion these false doctrines would have brought to the minds of the believers.  

    

Polycarp, whom I mentioned above, who was a disciple of John, quoted John as saying the following after seeing Cerinthus in a public bath.  "Let us flee lest also the baths fall in since Cerinthus is inside, the enemy of the truth."  This quote gives us a hint of how John viewed false doctrine as it applied to Jesus.  He did not tolerate it.  This intolerance is clearly seen in John's letter.  He called the false teachers liars (1 John 2:4) and said that they were deceivers (1 John 2:26).  He went as far to say that they had the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3).  What John said about these heretics would be seen today as culturally incorrect because of his apparent intolerance.          

 

One thing we can learn from this fight against false teaching is that the original followers of Jesus did not believe in the evolution of doctrinal truth.  If truth was not universally constant then it could not be true.  Truth does not evolve.  Truth is not relative.  Truth does not vary from person to person, from place to place, from culture to culture, and from time to time.  Truth is universally consistent. 

 

After considering all of the above, John, in 1 John 2:26, stated the reason for this letter, which confirms what I have just written.  The verse reads:

 

"I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you." 

 

 

John's Readers

 

The question should be asked to whom John penned his letter.  Unlike the apostle Paul's letters, John did not specifically state to whom he directed this letter in his opening sentence. 

 

1 John 1:3 states part of the reason why John wrote this letter.  It was so that his readers could have fellowship with him and his associates.  This implies that John had Christians in mind when he wrote his letter.  The use of the word "my little children" throughout this letter also suggests that John was writing to Christians.  John, an elderly man, viewed his readers as "children in the faith," just as Paul viewed Timothy as a "son in the faith."

All of the above being said, 1 John 5:13 specifically states to whom John was writing.  The verse reads:

 

"I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."

 

There is no dispute.  John was writing to Christians. This is an important point as we will see when I comment on 1 John 1:5 through 2:2.

 

 

  

John's Perspective

 

It is a biological fact that not one person is completely like another person.  Each of us approach issues from our own distinct vantage point that is influenced by our God-given character traits.  Differences between authors of the New Testament are clearly seen in how they write, what they write, and how they approach and understand Biblical issues.  A close reading of John's writings, Paul's writings, and James' writings, shows that to be true.  Each of these men understood certain theological issues in a different light.  Many have struggled over an apparent discrepancy between how James understood faith in relation to works and how Paul understood faith as it relates to works.  I do not believe for a minute that they disagreed on the matter of faith and works.  They simply approached the subject from a different vantage point.   

 

I mention this now because John approached some theological issues from a different vantage point than Paul.  John's writings show him to be pastorally orientated.  Paul had a pastor's heart but he was very theologically orientated.  He was a teacher of Biblical truth.  Even Peter said that some of Paul's writings were difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:16).  

 

An example of what I am saying is this.  Of all of the times the Greek word that is translated as "abides" or "remains," as in, "if we love one another, God remains in us ..." (1 John 4:12) John used it more than any other Biblical writer.  So, the theological issues surrounding these words are seen by John from his own distinct vantage point that sheds theological light on the issues about which these words speak. 

 

Another example is that in all of the New Testament, only John penned the Greek word "parakletos" in reference to Jesus.  We will learn something from John's vantage-point that we do not learn from the rest of the New Testament concerning Jesus in this respect.                  

 

Theme of the letter

 

Many Bible teachers suggest a theme for John's letter.  If I was asked to suggest a theme, I would say this.  The theme is an encouragement for Christians to live in loving Christian community with correct doctrine in the face of divisive and destructive heresies. 

 

Things have not changed in the church over the years.  There are still heresies and there are still divisions caused by these heresies.  Therefore, what John wrote to his readers certainly is relevant for us today.      

 

Lesson 1

(1 John 1:1 - 4)

 

The Text

 

1 -  What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life —  that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us —  what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.  We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

 

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 1

 

"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — "

 

To begin, we should note that even though we call 1 John a letter, it was not written as a traditional letter usually seen in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  The letter did not have an introduction of who wrote the letter and to whom the letter was written.  Hence, there has been a debate over to whom it was written.  Unlike the apostle Paul, who always directed his letter to specific people and introduced himself in some format, John did neither.    

 

As I wrote in my introduction, there is no doubt that John was writing to Christians who were suffering attacks from false believers with false doctrines.  1 John 1:3 tells us that part of the reason for this letter was so John and his associates could engage in godly fellowship with his readers.  This implies that John's readers were Christians.  Also, the use of the words "my little children" in this letter suggests that John was writing to Christians who he considered to be his children in the Lord.  Moreover, John specifically said that he was writing to believers in 1 John 5:13.  Knowing to whom John was writing helps us understand what he was saying throughout this letter, and especially what he said in 1 John 1:5 through 1 John 2:2, which we will come to later.   

 

As I also wrote in my introduction, there has been a debate over who wrote this letter.  You can refer back to my introduction where I said that I believe that John the apostle, who was also John the elder in Ephesus , wrote 1, 2, and 3 John.  Some Bible teachers believe John the elder of Ephesus , who was not John the apostle who knew Jesus while He was in the earthly, physical body, wrote this letter.

 

The words "what was from the beginning" in verse 1 remind us of how John opened his gospel account.  There is, however, a difference in how we should understand the words "in the beginning" in each account.  In John's gospel account "in the beginning" refers to creation as found in Genesis 1.  In John’s letter the words "from the beginning" refer to the days when John and his fellow disciples followed Jesus throughout the Galilean and Judean country-side.  I believe the context of these words in verse 1 shows this to be the case.     

 

The words "what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands" need some thought.  Right here in John's opening statement he refuted the false teaching that Jesus was some kind of phantom or ghostly being while on earth.  John and others not only heard Jesus speak, but they touched Jesus.  Jesus was no phantom.  He had a physical body that could be touched and felt.  

 

How should we understand the pronoun "we" in verse 1?  Is "we" the corporate "we," meaning John and his readers, or, should the word "we" be understood to mean something else?  The pronoun "we" cannot refer to John and his readers because John said that this "we" heard, saw, and touched Jesus.  Most, if not all, of John's readers were not alive when Jesus was on earth in order to see Him, hear Him, or touch Him.  Besides, Ephesus and its surrounding area, is a very long way from Galilee , where Jesus lived.  It is unlikely that most of John's readers would have traveled to Galilee . 

 

The pronoun "we" is the exclusive "we," meaning John and his associates who personally knew Jesus when He lived on earth.  In part, this is why I believe the words "in the beginning," that I commented on in an earlier paragraph, are in reference to the days when Jesus walked on this planet.          

 

There are a couple of other ways of thinking concerning the pronoun "we" which I will not elaborate on, other than to mention this one.  In more recent years some have believed that the pronoun "we" is what is called an "authoritative singular we."  I know that sounds complicated.  This simply means that there is credible historic evidence that those with some measure of authority used the plural pronoun "we" in a singular sense.  Since John would have had some kind of authority due to being one of the original apostles, some Bible teachers think the pronoun "we" as it is used here is just another way of saying "I." 

 

The phrase "the Word of life" refers to Jesus.  The Greek word "logos" is translated in English as "Word" in this verse, as it is in John's gospel account.  In John 1:1 Jesus is described as the Word who was both with God and was God.  The verse reads:

 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

 

How John described Jesus in John 1:1 addresses the Deity of Christ, which means that Jesus was fully God and fully human while on earth.  John 1:14 states that the Word became flesh, or human, and it did so in the form of Jesus, who unquestionably, lived among humanity.  Here is the quote.

 

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

 

It is this Jesus who John proclaimed in his letters, in his gospel account, and in the book of Revelation.  It is this Jesus who John and others heard, saw, and touched, as seen here in verses 1 and 2.  By making this proclamation at the beginning of his letter, John was refuting the false teaching concerning Jesus that was being spread by the heretics.  The real Jesus was someone who people saw, heard, and touched.  He was not a phantom.  Neither was He just an ordinary man who had the so-called Christ Spirit come upon Him when He was water baptized, and subsequently leave Him prior to his death.  Jesus was God in a human body, and He was so from conception.    

 

The Greek word "logos" that is translated in English as "Word" in this passage was an important word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  Greek philosophy understood logos to be the supreme being or god over all other gods.  John took this well-known religious Greek word and applied it to Jesus.  His point is most significant.  He proclaimed that the supreme god that the Greek philosophers called "logos" was in fact Jesus.  This confronted the pagan, religious thinking of the day.  It also refuted the false teaching promoted by Cerinthus and others concerning who they claimed was the real Jesus. 

 

I personally believe that the term "Word of life" is in reference to Jesus, but there are some Bible teachers who believe the term refers to the message of Christ.  I understand the reasons for believing the Word of life is the message, but still, I am, at least at the present time, understanding the term to refer to Jesus.    

 

Verse 2

 

"that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us —"  

 

Note the phrase "that life was revealed."  The word "revealed" is translated in English from the Greek aorist verb "phaneroo."  An aorist verb is a one-time action verb.  This means that at one specific moment in past human history, the eternal life, the eternal Word, Jesus Himself, who was with the Father, appeared in human history in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This appearance or revelation was a one-time event, because that is what a Greek aorist verb means.  Once again, John was speaking about the doctrine of the Deity of Christ.  He was confirming the pre-existence of Jesus before He was conceived in Mary's womb.  John, in his opening remarks, was refuting the false Jesus that Cerinthus and others were imposing upon the church.  The true understanding of Jesus is fundamental to Christian teaching, and without it all subsequent teaching cannot be trusted.  Any other doctrine that is built on a false view of Jesus is heretical.    

 

You might wonder at which point in history it was when the Word of life, Jesus, was revealed.  Some might suggest that He was revealed when Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that her son would be called the Son of the Most High.  This could be seen as a revelation, but it was only a revelation directed to one person, Mary.  Jesus was revealed to the world when John the Baptist baptized Him in water.  It was then that the voice from heaven spoke the following words, as written in Luke 3:22.   

“... and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.'"

The baptism of Jesus was in fact the heavenly declaration, spoken from heaven and directed to the world.  The eternal Word of life was in all reality Jesus.  He had no beginning and He has no end.  He always was, and He will always be.   

 

John told his readers that the eternal life that was with the Father and that appeared in humanity was what "we," the exclusive we - John and those with him when Jesus lived on earth, declared.  The word "declare" is important.  The announcement of God becoming human was, and still is, a declaration of Biblical truth.  It is not something to be debated or questioned.  

 

Note the pronoun "you" in verse 2 and following.  This supports my point that the pronoun "we" is not in reference to John and his readers in these first four verses.  If "you" refers to John's readers, then "we" cannot refer to his readers.

 

Verse 3

 

"what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."

 

Note the word "fellowship" in verse 3.  It is translated from the Greek word "koinonia" which means "to share or hold something in common with others."  What John and his readers held in common was Jesus, the eternal life, and this created a special bond of fellowship between John and those reading this letter. 

 

We should know that the word “fellowship” (koinonia in Greek) in its Biblical usage means more than having a conversation with someone over a cup of coffee, as we might think today.  In New Testament terms, koinonia, or fellowship, means the sharing of each other’s lives, a practice we have lost in much of the western-world church.  I am not talking about communal living.  I'm talking about building a heart-felt, personal, relationship with those to whom Jesus has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ, the church.  I'm talking about meeting each other’s needs, whether they are emotional, material, or spiritual.   

  

John went on to say that he had fellowship with both the Father and Jesus the Son.  We will learn, later, that this fellowship, or this communication, or common sharing of lives, is made possible through the Holy Spirit that will live within each and every true believer.

 

You may not have realized that the true believer has fellowship or communion with both God the Father and Jesus the Son, as John stated here, but he does.  Jesus Himself said that this would be the case in John 14:23.  He said this:

 

"Jesus replied, 'Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.'"

 

Note that Jesus said that "we," both He and the Father, will make their home in the life of the true believer.  This is realized when the Holy Spirit comes to live within you as a believer.  The Holy Spirit is both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.  This speaks about the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Concerning the Christian having fellowship with both the Father and His Son, he can have this fellowship because the two are one.  Jesus alluded to this in John 14:9.  The text reads:

 

"Jesus said to him, 'Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip?  The one who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, Show us the Father?'"

 

If Philip indeed saw Jesus, which he did, then in one sense of the word, he saw God the Father.  God the Father has reflected Himself in Jesus.  You might say Jesus is the mirror-image of God.  Hebrews 1:3 puts it this way. 

 

"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

 

John also spoke of fellowship with other believers. Once a person has true communion or fellowship with the Father and with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, he automatically has fellowship and communion with his brothers and sisters in Christ.  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:13 said that all true believers are baptized, or immersed, by the Holy Spirit, into one body, the Body of Christ, the church.  This means that when the Holy Spirit is poured into your life, you not only share your life with the Father and Jesus, you share your life with those to whom Jesus has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ.  This is what John is getting at when he told his readers that they should expect to have fellowship with him.  I repeat that this is more than the simple sharing over a cup of coffee that we call "fellowship" these days.  The Greek word "koinonia" that is translated as "fellowship" in its Biblical context implies the sharing of lives.  As Jesus shares His life with us, so we share our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

 

Note that John said that believers have fellowship with both God the Father and Jesus.  Without getting into a discussion about the doctrine of the Trinity, John does point out a clear distinction between the Father and the Son.  Along with this thought, and without getting into the Greek grammatical details, the Greek construction of the words "with the Father and with His Son" picture the Son and the Father as both being God.  Again, this speaks about the Deity of Christ, and also about the unity between the Father and the Son, Jesus. 

                  

Note the word "Christ" in verse 3.  "Christ" means "one who is anointed, or installed, into a specific role for a specific reason."  "Christ" is not a proper name.  It is a title.  Jesus is both Lord and Christ.  Jesus being Lord means more than Jesus being a king.  The word "Lord,” in Biblical terms as it applies to Jesus, means Jesus is God because all the way through the Old Testament God was known as the Lord.   “Christ," or "Messiah," means the anointed one who came to do God's will.  Over time, the title "Christ" has in some circles become a common name and for that reason some call Jesus, "Christ," as if "Christ" was a name like the name "Jesus."  I prefer to keep "Christ" as a title and not a name. 

 

When people called Jesus "Lord" in John's day, they were saying that Jesus was in fact God, a fact that the false believers rejected.  When they called Jesus "Christ" they were admitting that He was the long-awaited-for Messiah that would take away the sins of the world, another fact that the false believers rejected.     

 

Verse 4

 

"We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete."

 

The words of this verse tell us that John was writing what he did in order that the joy that comes from knowing Jesus and having the Holy Spirit in one's life, would be in John and his associates.  Any true Christian pastor, apostle, or leader has a good measure of personal joy, but, that joy becomes overflowing joy when those they are called to care for become mature Christians in the Lord.  I believe this is what John is talking about here.    

 

Jesus spoke of joy under stress, prior to being arrested by the Roman soldiers.  He certainly knew all about joy under stress.  Even in the midst of trouble that was leading to His death, Jesus had joy.  He, thus, could provide His disciples with joy.  In His prayer in John 17:13, Jesus prayed this:

 

"Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them."

 

The pronoun "they" in this part of Jesus' prayer refers to His followers.  He wanted them to be filled with joy. 

 

This joy is not some bubbly, excitable happiness.  It is a deep-in-the-heart joy that at times may not even be possible to express.  Much too often we confuse outward expressions of joy, thinking they are always a result of deep-in-the-heart-felt joy.  That is not always the case.     

                

To be consistent, the pronoun "we" in verse 4 must be the same exclusive "we" as above.  It is John and those with him while Jesus was on earth that the pronoun "we" is in reference to.   

 

You may have noticed some disparity from one version of the Bible to another version of the Bible concerning the word "our" that appears in verse 4 in the CSB version.  Some versions of the Bible use the word "your."  This variation is due to a textual difficulty that makes it difficult to know what English word to use.  By the end of the first century, in the Greco-Roman world the Greek words translated into English as "your" and "our" were written and pronounced almost the same way.  It is for this reason that the difficulty in the process of translation has arisen.  Whether the word should be "our" or "your" really does not make a lot of difference.  Joy expressed among the brotherhood of believers is part of true Christian fellowship.  

 

 

Review

 

John was making the point that he actually saw the eternal life, who is our Lord Jesus Christ that was birthed into a human body.  John saw Jesus, heard Jesus, and touched Jesus.  Jesus was not a phantom as some false teachers taught.  There was no way that anyone would ever convince John otherwise.    

 

Jesus was, and still is, eternal.  He had no beginning and He has no end.  He is both with God and is God.  The true believer, to whom John was writing, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, could have fellowship or communion with both God the Father and Jesus on a moment-by-moment, daily basis.  This fellowship, or life-sharing experience as the word "fellowship" means, extends to those to whom the true believer is joined in the Body of Christ.  When this fellowship is properly realized there is a joy that springs forth in the life of the believer that spreads throughout the Body of Christ, the church.   

      

 

Present-day applications

 

If you are a Christian, then you have no alternative but to believe or trust in the Biblical Jesus.  According to John and the rest of the New Testament, Jesus was fully God and fully human while on earth, and He was so from the moment He was conceived in Mary's womb by the power of God.  Jesus is also the eternal life that pre-existed, before being conceived in Mary's womb, and, He was both with God and was God, as John 1:1 states. 

 

Jesus being eternal means that He had no beginning and has no end.  Again, this is the doctrine of the Deity of Christ.  This doctrine is fundamental to all we hold true as Christians.  Any denial of this truth means that you do not believe in the Biblical Jesus.  You believe in a false Jesus, one who is not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible.  You trust in a false Jesus who cannot save you.  Any subsequent doctrine that is built on a doctrine of a false Jesus is inherently false itself.  Understanding the real Jesus is the most basic truth we hold as Christians.         

                           

Although you and I have never seen, heard, or touched Jesus in person as John did, we do touch Him through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  He is not a figment of our imagination.  He is real, and as Jesus said in John 20:29, we are blessed because even though we have not seen Him in person, we still trust our lives with Him.  Take it from Jesus: if you trust your life with Him who you have not seen with your eyes, you are blessed.

 

After returning to heaven, Jesus appeared on earth again via His Spirit.  Acts 2 describes how Jesus came to live in the lives of one hundred and twenty believers in the form of the Holy Spirit, sometimes called the "Spirit of Jesus" or the "Spirit of Christ" in the New Testament.  In like fashion, He also has appeared in the lives of those of us who believe today.  If you are a true born-again-of-the-Spirit believer, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of Jesus, lives within you.  This means that on a daily basis, from moment to moment, you can be in communion, or have fellowship, with Jesus and the Father.  It is this fellowship that is vital to our lives, but there is more.  Because your brothers and sisters in Jesus have the same Holy Spirit within them, there is a fellowship or communion with them that non-Christians cannot experience.  This fellowship is vital to our growth as Christians and to the success of the church's representation of Jesus to the world.  Far too often Christians have down-played the importance of brotherly and sisterly fellowship with those to whom Jesus has placed them alongside in the Body of Christ.  That should never be.  When we fail to recognize and live out this Biblical truth we cause great harm to the church, and to Jesus Himself.

 

As a reminder, fellowship in Biblical terms means the sharing of your life with those to whom Jesus has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ.  We share each other’s lives for two reasons.  The first is for mutual support, encouragement, instruction, and correction if necessary.  The second reason is to work or to function in ministry alongside those to whom Jesus has joined us.  We work with them to bring the message of salvation and the Kingdom of God to the world around us. 

 

Throughout John's letter we will see several characteristics of a true Christian.  The character trait we see in this section is that the true believer is one who has fellowship with God the Father, with Jesus His Son, and with those to whom the believer is joined in the Body of Christ.  By noting this characteristic I am not saying that this fellowship is always worked out perfectly in our lives.  We are still human and we still fail.  However, the desire for such fellowship is at the heart of a true believer.

 

John spoke of a joy, an inner joy that we as true believers have.  Even in the midst of trouble and sorrows, if we are in fellowship with Jesus and our heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit, there is an inexpressible inner joy.  I use the word "inexpressible" because the joy John spoke of here is more than a superficial happiness.  It is a deep-seated, heart-felt, joy that may or may not be easily expressed, but will have a major impact on the way we live.

 

For clarity, I have said that a true believer is one who has the Holy Spirit living within him.  When I say that, I am not equating believing with receiving the Holy Spirit into one's life.  I distinguish between believing in Jesus and receiving His Spirit.  I do not view believing and receiving as being the same event.  Believing leads to receiving, as I believe can be seen in what Peter said in Acts 2:38.  He said this:

 

"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"

 

Note the order in what Peter said.  He first told his audience that they needed to repent.  He told them that they then needed to be water baptized, which is an expression of faith, or, an expression that you will now trust Jesus with your life.  The result, then, of repenting and believing means that you will receive the Holy Spirit.  Receiving, then, is not believing.  It is the result of believing, and like the Samaritans in Acts 8, may take place at a future date after initially believing.  That being said, the general thinking is that once someone repents and believes, the result is receiving the Spirit, more or less, at the same time.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 2

(1 John 1:5 - 7)

 

The Text

 

5 - This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.  If we say, "We have fellowship with him," and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.  If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 

 

My Commentary

 

Introduction to 1 John 1:5 through 2:2

 

This portion of John's letter, from verses 1 through to chapter 2, verse 2, has caused me more trouble in interpreting its meaning than most passages of the Bible.  The reason for this is due to the fact that the most common interpretations of parts of this section within the Evangelical church have some problems that few seem willing to work through.

 

Part of the difficulty of this passage concerns the forgiveness of sins.  Some people, including some Evangelical denominations, teach that as a Christian you must confess your post-conversion sins.  If you don't, they are not forgiven.  This presents us with a problem: what happens if we neglect to confess a sin?  Are we still saved? For example, I know of people who say that suicide is a sin.  If a Christian commits suicide, he has no chance to confess that sin, and thus, will end up in the Lake of Fire . 

 

Other people teach, as I do, that all sin, past sin, present sin, and future sin, is forgiven by God upon one becoming a true believer.  At that point the Christian's name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life where there is no sin associated with his or her name. The problem this view presents us with is this: what are we to do with certain New Testament passages that tell the Christian to confess his sins apparently in order to be forgiven?  Does God forgive a sin twice?  Is there any logic in thinking that God could forgive a sin that He has already forgiven?     

 

Paul, in Colossians 2:13 said that all, and I believe that means, all past sins, all present sins, and all future sins, of the believer have been forgiven.  He wrote this:

 

"And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses."

 

On the other hand, the apostle James seems to suggest that sins we commit after becoming a Christian are forgiven once we ask forgiveness.  James 5:15 says this:

 

"The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."

  

I am sure you can see the difficulty here.  Are all of our sings forgiven, or, are only those we ask forgiveness for forgiven?  John is brought into the debate.  1 John 1:9 reads:

 

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

 

If John was addressing Christians in this verse, and that has been debated, then, apparently Christians need to confess their sins in order to be forgiven. 

 

How do we, thus, reconcile what seems to be two opposite view points.  This is my explanation, and it may or may not suit everyone.  I do believe that all of my sins, past, present, and future sins, were forgiven when I accepted Jesus' offer of forgiveness upon becoming a Christian.  It was after that confession of sin, faith in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit into my life, that my name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life where there is no sin associated with my name.  I am, thus, saved. 

 

Concerning this salvation, the New Testament speaks of salvation in three verb tenses.  I was saved.  Romans 8:24 says this:

 

"Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?"

 

"I am being saved.  2 Corinthians 2:15 reads:

 

"For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing."

 

I will be saved.  Romans 5:10 says this:

 

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life."

 

I think it is clear.  The above verses express our salvation in three verb tenses.  I was saved.  I am being saved.  I will be saved.  All this means that at one point in my life I got saved.  During my life as a Christian, I am being saved as salvation is being worked out in my daily life, until the day when Jesus returns to earth.  On that day I will be completely saved because Jesus will transform who I am into being like who He presently is (1 John 3:2).      

 

When we understand salvation in these three verb tenses, it only makes sense that all of what salvation is, must be seen in these three verb tenses.  When it comes to forgiveness, then, I was forgiven.  I am being forgiven.  I will be forgiven.

 

The next question to be asked is this.  How is all of this worked out in our lives?  I will attempt to answer this question in the following pages.      

 

Verse 5  

 

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him."

 

Verse 5 begins with "This is the message."  The Greek word "epaggelia" is translated as "message" in this verse.  This word is made up of "epa," meaning "upon," and "angello," meaning "to proclaim.”  Our English words "evangelical" and "evangelize" originate from this Greek word.  The message that John was referring to must be spoken to be effective.  That is what "epaggelia" means.     

 

I have heard people say that we should live the gospel message and if necessary speak it.  That is not Biblical.  Unless the gospel is proclaimed in audible words, it has no value.  Paul, in Romans 10:14, made this point perfectly clear.  He wrote this:

 

"How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in?  And how can they believe without hearing about him?  And how can they hear without a preacher?"

 

Note again the pronoun "we" in verse 5.  To be contextually consistent with what I have been saying, the pronoun "we" in this verse is the exclusive "we."  It is John and the original apostles who were alive when Jesus lived on earth.  They had preached, and John still did preach, the message.  The pronoun "you" in this verse also confirms the pronoun "we" to be in reference to the exclusive "we."  The pronoun "we" is John and his associates.  The pronoun "you" is in reference to John's readers who were Christians.  You can read my comments concerning John's readers being believers, in my introduction and in my comments on 1 John 1:1 through 4. 

 

The words "have preached" are a Greek perfect verb.  A perfect verb is a completed past-time action with present-day implications.  This means that John and the original disciples in the past preached the message that had present-day relevance in the lives of those to whom John was presently writing. 

 

The specific message that John wrote about was that "God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him."  The Greek construction of this phrase tells us that God is the epitome of light.  He is not one light among other lights.  He is the source of light, whether figurative light or natural light. 

 

John was speaking metaphorically when he wrote the word "light."  Light, as John used it in his gospel account speaks of being without sin.  Darkness, on the other hand, as John usually used it, speaks of sin and wickedness.  The word "light" in association with Jesus is used twenty-three times in the Gospel of John.  

 

God is sinless perfection.  There is no hint of evil or wickedness in Him.  This is the fundamental truth that John will build on in the following verses.  He will say that light and darkness cannot co-exist.  Where there is light there is no darkness and where there is darkness there is no light.  One either lives in the light of God or lives in the darkness of sin.  There is no middle ground.  It was theologically black or white in John's mind.     

 

Jesus spoke of light as being, what I might call, a search-light that exposes the sin of those living in darkness.  Jesus made this point in John 3:20.  The text reads:

 

"For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed."

 

The concept of God's light being a search-light into the soul is yet another way in which the New Testament uses and understands the word "light."    

 

Verse 6

 

"If we say, 'We have fellowship with him,' and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth."

 

From verse 6 through to chapter 2, verse 2, John stated three illogical false claims that were being expounded by those claiming to be Christian when in fact they were not Christian.  John addressed these false claims in terms of hypothetical proposals.  His focus was not on those expounding these false claims but on making sure his readers were thinking right when it came to Christian doctrine and practice.     

 

After stating each false claim John pointed out its problem and then provided his Christian readers with a statement of truth that was meant to re-affirm the truth to them.   They needed this re-affirmation because of any confusion these heresies would have brought their way.

 

I remind you that John was addressing the false claims in this section, not specifically the heretics.  That being said, I think I can safely say he had the heretics in the back of his mind when he penned these words.  His readers would have also had the heretics in their minds as they read John's letter.   

 

You will note that each of the false claims that John addressed here begins with the words "if we say."  I believe the pronoun "we" in this section of John's letter is in reference to John and his Christian readers.  That being said, we should know that John was not saying that his Christian readers were saying, or believing, these heresies, because they were not.  John was saying that if we did say, or did believe, these heresies, then, there would be a natural consequence to what we say and believe.  John was addressing each of these heretical claims in the form of a proposition.  There is no suggestion that his readers embraced these false claims.  As a matter of fact, as you read John's letter you will note that he confirms to his Christian readers that they did not embrace these false claims.  

 

Let me say what I have just said this way.  If I overhear two people discussing two different views on a certain issue, and then, I decide to join the conversation, I might say this.  "Listen guys.  I propose that if we say such and such, then, such and such is the natural outcome."  The pronoun "we" in my statement would refer to the three of us.  I am not suggesting that any of us actually believe what I am proposing.  I am simply making a proposal for us all to think through. 

 

The words "if we say" are just a grammatical means of speech to introduce a propositional statement.  I believe John could have easily said, "if anyone says," as he did say in 1 John 4:20.  He could have also said, "if you say."  Saying, "if we say," is merely a softer, less harsh, way of saying, "if you say."    

 

Verse 6 says that "If we say, 'We have fellowship with him,' and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth."  The word "walk" must not be understood as walking down a street.  "Walk," as it is often used throughout the Bible, speaks about a lifestyle. 

 

John was proposing that if he or his readers claimed to be in communion with God but lived a lifestyle of darkness and sin, then he and they, or anyone else, would be lying and not living in the truth.  John brought this false claim to the attention of his readers because the heretics were teaching that a Christian could have fellowship with God and live a lifestyle of sin. 

 

Remember, John was objecting to this false claim by means of a proposal.  He was not specifically refuting the heretics in a direct way, although indirectly, one might say he was.  He was just making sure his readers understood the issues they were facing.  This was a re-affirmation to the believers of the gospel truth that a Christian does not live a lifestyle of sin.  There is simply no logic in thinking that one who lives a life of sin can share his life with a God who is pure goodness and righteousness. 

 

I think it is interesting that John focused on the false teaching instead of the false teachers.  Far too often as Christians, especially in our church circles, we point the finger at people when we should be pointing the finger at wrong thinking.  That being said, sometimes you do have to expose the heretic for who he is.  The apostle Paul, and even Jesus Himself, was not afraid of doing that.  Paul, in 1 Timothy 5:20 told Timothy this: 

 

"Publicly rebuke those who sin, so that the rest will be afraid."

           

In 2 Timothy 2:17 and 18 Paul even mentioned two men by name who had wandered away from the truth and were teaching false doctrine.  Their names are Hymeneaus and Philetus.  These men are now forever known for their sin.

 

Note how John viewed truth.  For him, truth was not something to simply accept or adopt in one's thinking.  Truth was something that must be lived out in one's life in a consistent way.  Believing the truth is one thing.  Living the truth is something altogether different.     

 

Verse 7  

 

"If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."

Verse 7 states the truth that is contrasted to the false claim seen in verse 6. 

 

John said that "If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin."  Because the light is associated with God in verse 5 the pronoun "he" in this verse is in reference to God.  

 

Verse 7 follows the same format as verse 6.  So, when John wrote "if we" here in verse 7, the pronoun "we" refers to John and his Christian readers.  John refuted the false claim with the truth of God and at the same time re-affirmed that truth to his readers.  The truth he re-affirmed was that those who live in the light of God's truth have fellowship with one another and Jesus' blood cleanses them from sin.  Those who live in the light of God's truth are true Christians. 

           

True believers have fellowship, that is, the sharing of their lives, with one another.  Such fellowship cannot be realized between them and false believers.  The two lifestyles cannot harmoniously co-exist.  That is why the false believers left the church, as seen in 1 John 2:18 and 19.  The apostle Paul wrote about fellowship between true and false believers, in 2 Corinthians 6:14.  He said this:

 

"Don’t become partners with those who do not believe.  For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?  Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?"

 

Knowing that Biblical fellowship implies the sharing of lives and not just a friendly conversation, a heretic cannot share his life with a Christian.  The word "fellowship" is translated from the Greek word "koinonia."  This word means "to hold something in common with another."  The New Testament teaches that Christians share their very lives with one another because they hold the life of Jesus, through His Spirit, in common with each other.  The concept of sharing lives means much more than sharing a cup of coffee, in what is commonly called a time of fellowship after a Sunday morning meeting of the saints.                 

 

In verse 6, the false claim stated was that one could have fellowship with God and still live in darkened sin.  You might think, then, that John would comment on this false view of having fellowship with God while living a life of sin in verse 7, but he did not.  Instead of addressing the idea of having fellowship with God John addressed the idea of having fellowship with members in the church.  One who has fellowship with God, will have fellowship with those to whom they have been placed alongside in the Body of Christ.  That is simple Biblical logic.  Christians are joined to God and to fellow Christians by the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit that unites a person with God unites that person with others who have the Spirit of God in their lives.     

 

The false believers who claimed to have fellowship with God in John's day did not have fellowship with the believers.  They had actually left the church, as seen in 1 John 2:18 and 19.  If, by chance, the true Christians had thoughts of these false believers in mind, when they read this letter, they would have realized that the false believers were indeed false, and why?  It was because they left the church.

 

John introduced the word "sin" into the discussion here, in verse 7.  The heresy John would have had in mind concerned what constituted sin.  The heresy claimed that a true spiritual person could not sin.  It claimed that one's real self was spiritual and that spiritual self could not sin.  On the other hand, one's material self did sin, but that did not matter because ones material or physical self was not considered one's real self.  This false doctrine was a product of mixing first-century Greek philosophy into Christian doctrine, thus corrupting the truth of God.

 

There are a few definitions of sin found in the Bible, all contributing to its full meaning.  1 John 5:15 says that all wrongdoing or unrighteousness is sin.  Romans 14:23 says that anything done apart from faith in Jesus is sin.  Colossians 2:13 equates sin with a transgression.  The word "transgression" means to stumble and fall.  Most know sin to mean "missing the mark of a righteous life God requires for us to live" because "missing the mark" is the simple meaning of the Greek word "hamartia" that is translated as “sin” in the New Testament.  As humans, we consistently miss the mark of God's righteous life that He requires of us. 

 

As a side note, I believe that acts of sin are not our biggest problem.  Our biggest problem is our sinful nature that causes us to commit acts of sin.  This is what Paul battled with in his own life, as stated in Romans 7.  This is what Paul meant when he wrote about the flesh warring against the Spirit, in Galatians 5:17.  That verse says:

 

"For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want."

 

Here, in verse 7, John said that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all or every sin.  The word "cleanses" is translated from the Greek word "katharizo" which literally means "to clean."  This word was often used about cleaning stains from dirty clothes in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  We should, then, understand this cleansing process that John spoke of as the process by which the blood of Jesus removes the stain that acts of sin leave in our lives as seen by God Himself.  I distinguish between the act of sin and the stain that is left in our lives after a sin is committed.  I believe this verse says that God cleans the stain of sin from our lives.  This verse is not saying that He takes sin out of our lives, in the sense that we no longer sin.  That process is something altogether different.  In doctrinal terms, that is part of the process of sanctification.  

 

Note that the verb "cleanses" is a present-tense verb.  John was saying that the blood of Jesus has present-day implications in the life of the one living in the light of God, who would be a Christian.  Yes, the blood of Jesus was shed in a past, specific, time, but its effectiveness did not end in the past.  For those living in the light, the blood of Jesus, right now in present time, cleans the present-day stain that sin leaves in the life of a believer. 

 

It is at this point that I must remind you of my introduction to this section of John's letter.  I said that salvation is seen in three verb tenses in the New Testament.  We were saved (Romans 8:24).  We are being saved (2 Corinthians 2:15).  We will be saved (Romans 5:10).  With this in mind, we might be able to understand what John was saying about the blood of Jesus cleaning the stain of sin from our lives in present time.

 

There is no doubt that the blood of Jesus was shed one time in human history, and that was when He died on the cross.  His blood will never be shed again, so here is the question.  What was John writing about when he said that the blood of Jesus that was shed in past time, cleans in present time the stain our sin leaves? 

 

Jesus paid the price for all of our sins to be forgiven upon our acceptance of His offer of forgiveness.  He also paid the price for the stain that sin leaves in our lives to be cleaned upon our acceptance of His offer of cleansing.  The fact remains, though, that as Christians, we still sin.  That being the case, the blood of Jesus has present-day implications in that it cleans the stain that sin leaves in our lives.  The past action of Jesus shedding His blood is an effective present-day action in our lives as long as we live.

 

Allow me to use the Greek perfect verb tense as an illustration that might help our understanding in this matter, even though the Greek perfect tense is not used in this verse.  The perfect Greek verb is a past action that has present-day implications.  The shed blood of Jesus was a past action that has present-day, cleaning, implications in our lives.  As a matter of fact, it has eternal implications.   Jesus will be forever known as the one whose blood was shed to clean the stain of sin from our lives. 

 

Something else to think about is this.  God and Jesus live in a spiritual environment that is beyond our present space and time existence. They exist in what I would call the "eternal present" where there is no such thing as past, present, and future.  In this sense of the word, forgiveness and cleansing of sins would, therefore, take place in all three of our verb tenses, in all of our space-time environment.  Our sins, thus, have been forgiven and the stain of sin removed in the past, are being forgiven and removed in present time, and, will be forgiven and removed in future time.   

 

Further to what I have said, when the Bible speaks of the blood of Jesus, it is speaking of Jesus' death, a death that is somehow seen in Jesus' present-day form.  I suggest, then, that to be precise, the way in which the blood of Jesus cleanses the stain of sin from our lives today is in the fact that the once-crucified Jesus, presently stands before God as the cleaning agent.  Since Christians are in Christ as He stands in the presence of God, the stain of sin committed today is immediately cleansed.         

 

I believe there is an eternal aspect to the blood of Jesus.  When we see Jesus face to face, there will be something about Him that reminds us of His death on the cross.  If you read Revelation 5:6, you will note that Jesus is seen as the Lamb that has been slaughtered.  The text reads: 

 

"Then I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders.  He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth."

 

Some people equate the cleansing of the stain of sin that is left in one's life with their concept of sanctification, which they believe is sin being removed from their lives.  I suggest that the blood of Jesus does not remove sin from our lives.  It removes the stain that sin makes in our lives.  It is the Holy Spirit through the Word of God that begins to remove sin from our lives.  This is what Paul wrote about in Ephesians 5:25 and 26 where, in relation to the church, he said that we are made holy and are cleansed by the washing of water of the Word of God.  It is the Holy Spirit speaking the Word of God into our lives that little-by-little removes acts of sin from our lives. 

 

The cleansing of the stain of sin from our lives might be seen in picture form in Revelation 7:9.  It reads:

 

"After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands."

 

Those wearing the white robes might be understood figuratively as being cleaned up from the stain of sin.

 

The idea of cleansing us from the stain of sin goes back to Old Testament Judaism, which John would have been familiar with.  Leviticus 16:30 reads:

 

"Atonement will be made for you on this day to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD."

 

The above verse is found in what is commonly called the "Law of Moses."  It was known as the "Torah" by the Jews, and is still known as the "Torah" today by the Jews.  The blood sacrifices that were stipulated in the Torah were meant to remove the stain of sin from individual Jews, from the nation of Israel , and from the tabernacle and all that was in the tabernacle.  It has been debated whether the blood sacrifices actually deleted the sin of the people from God's records or simply covered the sin over.  My understanding to date, is that the Jews of old understood their sins to be deleted from the heavenly record once the sacrifices were performed, and especially after the scapegoat was sent free into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement.  

 

One thing we know for sure, and it is the message of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, that all of the blood sacrifices did not permanently fix the sin problem.  Individual sacrifices deleted the sins that were sacrificed for.  The Day of Atonement deleted the rest, but, since the Day of Atonement was a yearly event, sins committed after the Day of Atonement passed were added to the heavenly record.  They had to be dealt with on a yearly basis, but this is not the case with the blood of Jesus.  The blood of Jesus has removed, once and for all time, all sin from the heavenly record for the believer.          

           

Note that 1 John 1:7 states that the blood of Jesus cleanses the stain of all our sin, not just some sins or past sins.  It seems to me, then, that the stain of all our sins are cleaned up.  None are excluded.

 

If those holding to the view that they could live a lifestyle of sin and still have fellowship with God would realize their error, they could find cleansing from the stain of their sin and fellowship with believers if they would forsake their heresies and come to the truth, as seen here, in verse 7.

 

 

Review

 

John said that God is pure light.  This is figurative language to denote that God is sinless.  There is no darkness of sin in His existence.  It only makes sense, then, that one cannot live a lifestyle of sin and have fellowship, or communion, or, share his life in common, with God. 

 

On the other hand, if one lives in the light of God's sinless existence, then, he can commune, or, share his life with God.  The word "fellowship" means "to share something in common with another."  Furthermore, that person can have fellowship, or, share his life with those to whom Jesus has placed him alongside in the Body of Christ. 

 

John also stated that a Christian is being continually cleaned from the stain his present sins would make in his life.  A Christian does sin, and therefore, needs the stain that sin leaves in his life removed.  This speaks about the present significance of the blood of Jesus: although shed one time in the past, it has present-day effectiveness, because the present-day, Lamb of God, stands before God on our behalf.   

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

One character trait of a real Christian, as seen in this section, is that he shares his life with God and with his fellow believers.  Although he does sin, he does not live a lifestyle of sin.  When he does sin, the blood of Jesus, with its eternal effectiveness, cleans the stain that sin leaves from his life.  Like the saints seen in the book of Revelation, he is figuratively seen by God as wearing white robes.  In other words, he is seen by God as having no stain in his life due to his sin. 

 

What we see here are fundamental truths that need to be burned into our souls.  Without some kind of heart-felt conviction in these matters, there is no maturity as a Christian. 

 

John's teaching also should make it clear to us that not all who claim to be Christian are Christian.  We, with Holy-Spirit-led, and Biblically-based understanding, should be able to distinguish, at least in most cases, who is Christian and who is not Christian.    

 

At this point many get concerned because they think making this distinction becomes a matter of judging, and, they define judging as being judgmental, as understood by our secular culture in which we live.  Allow me to suggest that the Bible does not tell us not to judge. 

 

Jesus, in John 7:24, told us both to judge and how to judge.  He said our judgment must be based on the truth of the matter and not merely on the appearance of the matter.  The verse reads:

 

"Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment."

 

Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 7:16.  It spoke about what John is getting at here.

 

"You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?"

 

Both John's and Jesus' point is simple.  An apple tree produces apples, not oranges.  A real Christian produces what Paul called the fruit of the Spirit, in Galatians 5:22 to 26.  He does not produce fruit of the flesh.  The Christian, although he sins from time to time, does not live a lifestyle of sin like the outright sinner.  We, therefore, at least in many cases, are able to distinguish between the true and false believer.  In part, this is the message of 1 John.   

 

The basic problem with the false teaching in John's day arose from mixing Greek philosophy with Christian theology.  This should never be done.  It weakens and distorts the truth of the gospel.  Such mixture has afflicted the church throughout history and is still with us today.  It seems to be an ever-present human tendency to mix cultural thinking with Biblical thinking in order to accommodate non-Christians in the church.  This unholy tendency has messed up the church over the centuries, and it is happening today among some who believe that the god of Islam is the same God of Christianity.  That is an illogical impossibility, but it is an attempt to unite Christians with Muslims.  Such an accommodation destroys the Biblical message and the effectiveness of the church.  We need to be aware of this tendency and refute it.  If John were here with us today, he would do just that, and he would do it in no uncertain terms. 

 

 

Extra Notes

 

At this point I would like to show the difference between the word "relationship" and the word "fellowship" as it applies to us and God.  Christians have a legal relationship with God because of the cross of Christ.  Because God is just, sin had to be accounted for.  Somehow, someone had to suffer the penalty for humanity's sin.  If God neglected to punish the sinner for his sin, then God would not be just.  So Jesus, who never sinned, received the punishment of death on our behalf.  In this way God's justice was completely satisfied.  As a result, God has declared the Christian to be in right standing with Him.  In other words, the believer has a legal relationship with God.  He is God's son.  That is the status conferred on him.  No sin that he commits can change that relationship.   What sin does in the life of the Christian is this: it disrupts the fellowship, or communion, that we have with God.  It does not, however, revoke our legal status of being in right relationship with Him. 

 

You will remember the story Jesus told about the prodigal son.  The son was rebellious and out of touch, out of fellowship, with his father, but, he was still his father's son.  When the son returned to his father in repentance, fellowship with his father was restored.  The same is true with us as children of God.  When we sin we are still God's children.  Our sin disrupts the fellowship we have with Him.  When we confess our sin and thank God for his forgiveness that was granted us upon our initial salvation, our fellowship with Him is restored.

 

Another issue to consider is this: we must differentiate between justification and sanctification.  Justification is the process by which we have been declared righteous, or, in right standing with God.  Sanctification is the process by which righteousness is made real in our lives through our dedication to Him, which is assisted by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.  When putting justification and sanctification alongside each other, you could say it this way: God views us as being in right standing with Him while at the same time provides the spiritual ability for us to become righteous through the process of sanctification.  In theological terms, God's declaration of righteousness as a status on our lives is called "imputed righteousness."  The working out of this righteousness in our lives is called "imparted righteousness."          

 

    

 

 

 

 

Lesson 3

(1 John 1:8 - 9)

 

The Text

 

 I - If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 8

 

"If we say, 'We have no sin,' we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 

 

Verse 8 introduces the second of the three false claims that John was addressing.  In contrast, verse 9 will provide the truth that counteracts this false claim. 

 

Verse 8 follows the same format as verses 6 and 7 with its conditional "if" clause, which includes the pronoun "we."   The pronoun "we" refers to John and his readers.  That being said, once again, John's use of the pronoun "we" does not mean his readers embraced this second false claim.  John's use of the pronoun "we" is simply a grammatical device.  I believe he could have easily said, "if you say" or "if anyone says."   The "if we say" phrase is simply one way in which John was introducing his propositional statement.        

 

John made the proposal in this verse by saying that "if we say, 'we have no sin,' we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."  Again, John was directing his thoughts about this false claim to his Christian readers because that is to whom he is writing (1 John 5:13).  John's statement re-affirmed to his Christian readers that the claim to have no sin is a deceptive claim and the truth is not in anyone who would make that claim.  If the truth, which John 14:6 states is Jesus Himself, is not in a person, then that person is not a true Christian.  This also re-affirms to John's Christian readers that Christians do sin.  We will see this more clearly when we come to 1 John 2:1.   

 

By implication, John was also exposing the false Christians who held to the thinking that a truly spiritual person could not sin.  It was these false teachers, with their false teachings, that were most likely causing confusion among the believing community.  It was for this reason that John needed to address these false claims.         

 

Verse 9

 

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

 

Verse 9 provides the truth to the false claim seen in verse 8 that states a Christian can live without sin in his life.      

 

Verse 9 follows the same format as verses 6, 7 and 8 with its conditional "if" clause which includes the pronoun "we," meaning, John was addressing his Christian readers.  "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  Let us look at this verse more closely.  There are important words in this verse that need clarification.   

     

Our English word "confess" is translated from the Greek word "homologeo."  This Greek word means "to say the same thing."  So, when anyone confesses a sin, whether Christian or non-Christian, he is agreeing with God concerning what constitutes a sin, and in particular, he is agreeing that what he is confessing is a sin.  We must not define sin in the same manner as the heretics did in John's day.  Their definition of sin differed from God's definition of sin.  We agree with God's definition of sin, and if we don't, we are deceived, as John stated.

 

What John said here, is yet another re-affirmation of the fact that a person who claims to have no sin, as seen in verse 8, can find forgiveness of his sin and cleansing from all unrighteousness if he confesses that he actually does sin. 

 

The words "forgive" and "cleanse" need some clarification.  The Greek word "aphiemi" is translated as "forgive" throughout our English New Testament.  This word simply means to delete or cancel.  It was often used as an accounting term in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  Think, then, of the word forgive this way.  You have a mortgage at a bank for one hundred thousand dollars.  You inherit one hundred thousand dollars when your father passes away.  You go to the bank and pay off your debt.  At that point the bank forgives, cancels, or deletes, your debt from its records.  Your mortgage debt now shows a zero balance.  This is the meaning of Biblical forgiveness. 

 

Every human being is in debt to God.  The debt is our sin.  At initial salvation, when we confess our sin and confess that we are sinners, God deletes all sin that is associated with us from the heavenly record.  We have a zero balance when it comes to sin.  Our names are then written in the Lamb's Book of Life where there is no sin associated with our names.  God does this because Jesus paid our debt of sins with His sacrifice on the cross.  Forgiveness is, thus, the deletion of sin from the heavenly record. 

 

The word "cleanse" is a word that is seen throughout the Bible.  Whether in New Testament or Old Testament terms, the word "cleanse" is in reference to cleaning the stain that sin leaves in a life, a stain that God clearly sees.  We should realize that the word "cleanse" does not suggest that we no longer sin.  We are human and we will sin.   

 

You might wonder how God, being just, or righteous, as the CSB puts it, forgives our sin.  The death of Jesus on the cross was in fact an act of justice.  Sin had to be accounted for and punished by God, or else He would not be just.  There is nothing in God that motivates Him to suspend His punishment for sin forever.  His divine sense of justice needed to be satisfied, and it was satisfied when Jesus was punished on our behalf; when Jesus experienced the wrath of God so we would be free from His wrath.  If God did not forgive sin upon the sinner's confession and repentance, He would not be just, because justice, as it pertains to sin, has already been served on the cross of Christ.    

 

I remind you again of what Paul wrote in Colossians 2:13 because it is so important.  He wrote this: 

 

"And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses."

 

What Paul said in Colossians 2:13 would apply, even to the heretics in John's day.  If they confessed their sin, they would be forgiven. Then, Psalm 103:12 would be realized in their lives.  It reads:

 

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

 

I have said it before, but it needs to be repeated. When thinking of these things we should know that when a person becomes a Christian, his name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 21:27) where there is no sin associated with his name.  Upon initial salvation, God proclaims a person to be totally righteous, meaning in right standing with Him.  Along with that, all sins are forgiven.  This is the doctrine of justification that Paul expounded upon in his letter to the Romans.  It is vitally important for every Christian to know that all of his or her sins have been deleted from the heavenly record and that God declares the new believer to be innocent and in right-standing with Himself. 

 

All of the above being said about the sinner finding forgiveness and being cleaned from all unrighteousness, many people, if not most people, believe John was thinking of Christians confessing their sin.  They do not necessarily think John had non-believers in mind. At the moment, I do not see it that way.  I understand the one confessing sin is the one, in verse 8, who claimed to have no sin.  If John was thinking of Christians, in verse 9, we have a problem that needs to be thought through. 

 

This is the problem.  If 1 John 1:9 is directed to Christians, as many think, how can a Christian's present-day sin be forgiven if it was already forgiven when he accepted Jesus' offer of forgiveness when he first became a Christian?  Can, or does, God forgive a sin twice?  Did God really forgive past, present, and future sins, when one became a Christian?  If God did not forgive all sins at one's initial salvation, as I believe He does, then what happens if we forget to confess a sin?  What happens if we don't want to confess a sin?  Will we lose our salvation at that point?  Can we ever know for sure where we stand with God?  These are questions in need of answers.

 

For me, these questions are not relevant here as this verse does not refer to Christians as verse 7did, where we read that the blood of Jesus cleanses the believer from all sin.   

 

If, by chance, you believe John was thinking about Christians, in verse 9, then I remind you of the three states of salvation that I wrote about earlier.  In Biblical terms, we were saved (Romans 8:24).  We are being saved (2 Corinthians 2:15), and we will be saved (Romans 5:10).  All three verb tenses are used in the New Testament concerning our salvation.  This tells me that all aspects of salvation are a process from the day we got saved to the day our salvation finds its completion when we meet Jesus face-to-face and are changed into His likeness.  If this is truly the case, then, forgiveness might be able to be considered as a process.  That is to say, we were forgiven, we are being forgiven, and, we will be forgiven. 

 

There is no doubt in my mind that my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, where there is no sin associated with my name.  I am convinced of that.  However, I, and you also, still sin, even if we do not realize we sin.  When the Holy Spirit places His convicting finger on that sin and we have realized that it is sin, we do need to confess that sin.  We do need to agree with God that we have sinned, and do so in order to restore any lost fellowship with God that might have resulted from our sin. 

 

I believe John addressed the point that Christians do sin in the next section, when he made comments on the third false claim.  Verse 9, however, was directed to non-believers, or so I believe.

 

 

Review

 

I admit that this section of John's letter, if you really study it through, is difficult to understand.  I also admit that there are different opinions that can be debated.  Whatever the case, I am sure that we can all agree that one who claims that he does not sin is not practicing the truth of Scripture.  That person, however, can find forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness if he confesses his sin. 

 

The verb "confess" in verse 9 is a present subjunctive Greek verb.  This verbal action speaks about a continuous present-time, action.  That is to say, if we confess today, our sins are forgiven.  If we confess tomorrow our sins are forgiven.        

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

I admit that this section is difficult to grasp.  One thing we know for sure is that as Christians, we still sin.  Another thing we know is that if we are true Christians, our names are written in the Lambs book of Life where there is no sin associated with our names.   

 

One of our basic problems as Christians these days is that we do believe that we sin, but, beyond that, we do little about it.  Even though we have been declared by God to be righteous, the Bible makes it clear that we must grow in righteousness.  Therefore, the character trait of a Christian in this passage states that even though a Christian sins, and even though his sins are forgiven, his desire is to live the righteous life that God would expect him to live.         

 

If you believe that verse 9 refers to Christians, then it would suggest that when we, as Christians, sin, we cannot ignore that sin.  We must confess it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 4

(1 John 1:10 - 2:2)

 

The Text

 

 

10 - If we say, "We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 

2:1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 10

 

"If we say, 'We have not sinned,' we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." 

 

Verse 10 presents us with the third of the three false claims that John addressed, and it is followed by the truth, in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

 

Verse 10 follows the same format as verses, 6 and 8 with a conditional "if" clause and the pronoun "we" that is in reference to John and his Christian readers.  The context shows that to be true.  Also, 1 John 5:13 clearly states that those reading this letter were Christians.    

 

John said that "If we say, 'We have not sinned,' we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."  The pronoun "him" refers to God, as is stated in verse 5, of chapter 1.   

 

John proposed that if he and his readers claimed to not sin, they would be calling God a liar and the word would not be in them.  The "word" John spoke of here might refer to the message of God being light, as seen back in verse 5, or, it might refer to Jesus Himself, since Jesus is the Eternal Word, as seen in John 1:1.  Whatever the case, a person who lives the life of sin but claims not to sin cannot be a Christian and this is the truth that John was re-affirming to his readers.  John was making this re-affirmation because of the heretics who claimed they did not sin because their real selves were spiritual beings, and according to the Greco-Roman influence of the day, spiritual beings could not sin.    

 

Chapter 2, verse 1

 

"My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin.  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ the righteous one."

 

Chapter 2, verse 1, is the response to the false claim made in chapter 1, verse 10, but, unlike the other two responses to the false claims, John clearly, with no uncertainty, states this one is specifically directed to, and meant for, his Christian readers.  There is some debate whether John had his Christian readers in mind or the false believers in mind when he addressed the first two false claims.  There is no debate this time. The answer to the false claim was not directed to the non-believer or to the heretics.  John clearly stated that it was directed to his Christian readers.  

 

What John said here, in verses 1and 2, is extremely important to realize as a Christian.  It is also important to remember the content of these two verses because we will have to come back to them later when we study what appears to be a contradiction over whether a Christian can or cannot commit a sin.     

 

Verse 1 begins with "my little children."  John was not writing to infants or small children.  He used the words "little children" because he was an elderly man at this point in his life, and like the apostle Paul, he considered his readers to be his children in the Lord.  In 1 Timothy 1:2 Paul called Timothy his "son in the faith."  Here, John viewed those to whom he was writing, as children in the faith.  This is how we should understand John's usage of the words "little children" in this instance and throughout his letter.  As a matter of fact, as you read John's letter you will see the words "little children" a number of times.     

 

John told his Christian readers that he was writing these things, meaning what was written in this letter, so that they "would not sin."  This letter was meant to be an encouragement to the true Christians to whom John was writing because he knew that true believers would commit sin from time to time, especially when these particular believers might have been tempted to sin because of the false teaching they were hearing from the heretics. 

 

We should know that Christians, although they do not live in a lifestyle of sin, do commit sin and it is because of their sinful nature.  The apostle Paul addressed the concept of a sinful nature.  He spent a whole chapter on the subject, as seen in Romans 7. 

 

The idea that a Christian could sin was in contrast to the false claim that was made by the heretics, which was that they did not sin.  That is to say, what they considered to be their real self, that was spiritual, did not sin.  Their physical self did sin, but that was of no concern to them because they did not consider their physical being to be their real self.  They actually indulged in physical sins, and enjoyed what they indulged in.      

 

John said two things concerning sin, in this verse, as they applied to the Christian.  The first thing he said was that he did not want believers to sin.  In saying this, we know that John took sin seriously, and so should we.  The second thing he said was that he conceded to the fact that Christians do sin from time to time.  Christians sin because they have a sinful nature that temps them to sin.  For this reason, we should not brush off the sin we commit by saying, "we are only human," as we often do.  Yes, we as Christians are human and do sin, but we must take sin seriously and deal with it.   

 

The apostle James concurred with John, and Paul as well, when he said that people sin because they are tempted by their own human nature to sin.  James 1:14 says this:

 

"But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire."

 

In other words, we don't need help from the devil to cause us to sin.  We have sufficient ways of sinning on our own, without his help. 

 

Over the years people have had various definitions of what sin is.  Some suggest that simply disobeying the Ten Commandments is sin.  Sin is much more than that.  Jesus actually redefined the commandments to make sin a matter of the heart and not simply an outward action, or outward disobedience to a command found in the Ten Commandments.  For example, the commandment said to not commit adultery.  Jesus said that if you sexually lust after another, you have sinned by committing adultery in your heart.  Many Christians have not physically committed adultery as an outward action but many, if not most or even all, have sinned by sexually lusting in their hearts. 

 

I like how Paul defined sin, in Romans 14:23.  He said that anything we do apart from faith and trust in Jesus is sin.  That covers a wide range of things. 

Anything we do, therefore, in our own human effort in serving Jesus, might well be classified as sin.  That is why I say that a Sunday school teacher, if he or she leaves Jesus on the sidelines while he or she is teaching, is sinning.  

 

John, in 1 John 5:17, defined sin by saying that any wrongdoing or unrighteousness is an act of sin.  That too is a very broad definition of sin.  It could include many things. 

 

Most of us know sin to be "missing the mark of God's righteous requirements in our lives" because "missing the mark" is the definition of the Greek word "hamartia" that is translated as "sin" in the New Testament.       

 

The CSB version of the Bible says this, in verse 1.  "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one."  Note that the word "anyone" is singular while the word "we" is plural.  John said that if a person commits a sin, we all have an advocate with the Father.  John was admitting that Christians do sin, and again, this was in contrast to the false claim that was being made by the heretics that stated a spiritual person does not sin.  Beyond that, John was saying that we have a righteous one, that the CSB version of the Bible calls an advocate. 

 

We should understand the words "righteous one" in two ways here, as I have defined in my chapter of word definitions.  Jesus is the Righteous One.  Why?  He is the Righteous One because He is both in right standing before God and while being in right standing, He lives a life that one is expected to live when being in right standing before God.  He is morally and ethically good.        

       

The Greek word translated into English as "advocate" in the CSB is "parakletos."  This word means "one who is called alongside another" and usually for a specific reason.  This word was commonly used in a legal sense in the first century, Greco-Roman, world of law.  In a court of law, a parakletos was what we call a defence lawyer that represented the accused before a judge.  This is, in part, why the CSB version of the Bible, and other versions as well, translate this Greek word as advocate.  Allow me to suggest that translating "parakletos" as "advocate" here is a bit interpretive.  To be more precise you could say this.  "We have one who has been called alongside of the Father."  That is a more precise translation.  Understanding it this way does not necessarily suggest the One called alongside the Father is an advocate, or, a defence lawyer.  Of course, this might depend on one's precise definition of the word "advocate."    

     

If we understand the word "advocate" to be just a defence lawyer, and we translate "parakletos" as "advocate," as the CSB and other translations do, we are incorporating the Greco-Roman, legal sense of parakletos into the process of translation.  We are taking an additional step beyond what the word "parakletos" meant and adding one of its many usages in the process of translation.  This might actually suggest something John never had in mind. 

 

Parakletos had more than one common usage in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  I might, then, ask, "Why translate 'parakletos' as 'advocate'?  Why not translate it in light of other common usages of the day?"  

 

The word "advocate" might well be a good translation, but I am not convinced it is the best translation.  It is a step beyond translating parakletos as being "one who has been called alongside of another."  I believe translating parakletos as advocate is incorporating one's interpretation into the process of translation, and, that may or may not be problematic.  I would translate this part of verse 1 this way.

 

"If anyone does sin, we have one who has been called alongside the Father, the Righteous One." 

 

If Jesus is in fact our defence lawyer, and He stands before God, the Universal Judge, on our behalf, then in context, His representation concerns our present-day sins.   That might suggest that a sin committed today is advocated by Jesus today.  Some, then, suggest that the present-day sin was not forgiven until we confessed it in present time.  They were not forgiven at our initial salvation when we accepted God's offer of forgiveness. They would say that future sins are not yet forgiven.  They will only be forgiven when we confess them in the future.  As I mentioned earlier in my comments of 1 John 1:7, 8 and 9, this raises a number of questions.  For this reason, the subject of forgiveness of sin has been well debated over the centuries.   

 

Without getting sidetracked on other New Testament passages, you might want to consider how James 5:15 fits into this discussion.  It says this:

 

"The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."

 

Note that James seems to have suggested that present day sins "will be forgiven," not that they have "already been forgiven."  I only point this out to say that the concept of forgiveness has been debated by Bible teachers for years.  Whole denominations have formed over differences concerning forgiveness of sins. 

 

If you understand the word "advocate" to mean other than a defence lawyer, meaning thus that Jesus speaks to God on our behalf for other reasons than our sins, then maybe "advocate" would be a proper word.  To narrow "advocate" down to simply the forgiveness of present-day sins, might be too narrow a definition.  Jesus could be situated alongside of God, speaking to Him, on our behalf for many reasons.         

 

For me, at least at present, I do not see the word "parakletos" as referring to Jesus as if He were  specifically a defence lawyer, who asks God to forgive a present-day sin.  I believe verse 2 actually explains how we are to understand "parakletos", as John used it in this section of his letter.  

 

One thing we know about Jesus is that He is situated alongside God as one who is both in right standing before God and also lives as if He were in right standing before God.  He stands in perfectly right relationship with God His Father, as John said here, in verse 1.      

 

One role we know that Jesus has, as He is situated alongside of God, is that of being our Great High Priest.  The following verses, in Hebrews, tell us something about Jesus being our Great High Priest.  They are Hebrews 5:5, 5:10, 6:20, 7:26, 8:1, 8:3, 9:11, 9:25, and 10:21.   Hebrews 8:1 says this:

 

"Now the main point of what is being said is this: We have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens ..."   

 

The book of Hebrews clearly states that Jesus is our Great High Priest.  We even saw hints of this in His earthly life when He interceded on behalf of His followers, in what has often been called His "priestly prayer" in John 17.  I think, as Jesus is situated alongside God His Father right now, He performs a number of duties that can be seen in the New Testament.  Some of these duties specifically apply to us while others don't directly apply to us. 

 

Verse 2

 

"He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world."

 

Verse 2 in the CSB version of the Bible says that "He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world."  The words "He Himself" doubly emphasizes what John is about to say about Jesus being our "atoning sacrifice."  In other words, the atoning sacrifice that Jesus offered to God on our behalf was Jesus Himself.  This is in stark contrast to all of the sacrifices, offered in Old Testament times, which were animals, and not the priests themselves who offered the animals as the sacrifices.  All this being said, we must understand the meaning of the Greek word that is translated here as "atoning sacrifice."  I am not entirely convinced that the CSB's translation of the Greek "hilasmos" as "atoning sacrifice" is the best translation.  I actually prefer the KJV in this instance.   

 

Other versions of the Bible translate "hilasmos" as either “propitiation" or "expiation" for this verse.  These two words need considerable thought if we are to begin to understand what John said in this verse and the previous verse.  They have been important words in Christian doctrine and practice over the centuries.

 

Before we begin to understand the Greek word "hilasmos," let me define propitiation and expiation first.  Propitiation is the process by which God's wrath is removed from one's life.  Expiation is the process by which one's sin is removed from the heavenly record. 

 

In recent decades there has been much debate over whether John had propitiation or expiation in mind when he penned the word "hilasmos."  Was John thinking of expiation, as in God removing our sins from his records, or, was John thinking of propitiation, God's wrath being removed from our lives?  The Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates "hilasmos" in this verse as "expiation."  The King James Bible translates "hilasmos" here as "propitiation."  The CSB version of the Bible, which I have been using in this commentary, translates "hilasmos" as atoning sacrifice.  So who is right?  Each one of these translations have a somewhat different meaning, although atoning sacrifice and expiation might be considered similar in some respects. 

 

Expiation has become more popular in recent times because the idea of a loving God exhibiting wrath seems to be a contradiction of His very nature.  For this reason, many more liberally-orientated Bible scholars disregard the idea of propitiation, the removal of God's wrath from one's life.  They prefer expiation, the removal of sin instead.  

 

I hold to the belief that God does exhibit wrath, and thus, we cannot exclude the word "propitiation" from Christian theology.  I, therefore, conclude that "hilasmos" should be properly understood in this verse as the removal of God's wrath from the life of the believer.  This would also fit the common meaning of "hilasmos" in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religious, world, a meaning that I believe to be important. 

 

The concept of propitiation, as seen in the Greek word "hilasmos" had relevance to the pagan religion of the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  It was not a foreign concept in John's day.  Pagans believed that they had to do something to appease the gods; to remove their gods’ anger from their lives in order to find favour with the gods.  This concept is not the Biblical concept of propitiation that is seen in the New Testament.  The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, made it clear that we can do absolutely nothing to remove God's wrath from our lives in order to live in His favour.  The text reads:

 

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift  ​— not from works, so that no one can boast."

 

Removing God's wrath from our lives was God's job, not ours.  God Himself, became human in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as John said here, "Jesus Himself is our atoning sacrifice," or as I prefer, "our propitiation," the One who has removed the wrath of God from the believer's life so the believer can live in God's good grace and constant favour.  It was Jesus who paid the price to have God's blessing of salvation come our way once God's wrath was removed from our lives.  We can do nothing about that but embrace what Jesus has done for us.   

 

Those who reject the process by which God's wrath is removed from their lives remain under the wrath of God (John 3:36) and will find their place in the Lake of Fire at the White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:11 - 15).  You could say that the love of God has paid the price for the wrath of God to be removed from the lives of all who have accepted God's offer to have His wrath removed from their lives. 

 

John 3:36 reads:

 

"The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him."

 

Jesus made it clear, as seen in the above verse.  God's wrath still remains on the one who rejects His sacrifice.  More liberal theologians are wrong to disregard the concept of propitiation.  God's wrath still remains on the unbeliever until such time as he repents, hands his life over to Jesus in faith, and, receives the Holy Spirit into his life.

 

At this point we need to note the verb tense of the CSB's phrase "is an atoning sacrifice."  It is in the present tense, not the past tense.  That means right now, in present time, Jesus is our "hilasmos," or, our "propitiation."  He is the sacrifice that has removed God's wrath from the lives of all believers.  We often think of Jesus as being our propitiation in the past tense when He died on the cross, and that He was, but, He is also our propitiation right now as He sits at God's right hand.  He is our present-day propitiation because that is who He has always been.      

  

At the moment, my understanding of verse 2 is this.  Jesus is situated at God's right hand as one who redirects God's wrath from the life of the believer when he sins.  Yes, His sacrifice was a once-and-for-all time sacrifice as Hebrews 9:12 states.  His sacrifice will never be made again.  Hebrews 9:12 says this:

 

"He entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."

 

However, even though Jesus' sacrifice was a one- time sacrifice, Jesus Himself, is presently seen by God as being that sacrifice, or in this specific case, our propitiation.  His very presence redirects any wrath that might rise within God because of the sin we as Christians still commit.  I believe I can safely say, that even though all of our sins have been deleted from God's records, God must not be very happy when we do sin.  It is Jesus, our present-day propitiation, who makes God, if I can say it this way, happy with us, despite our sin.      

 

The idea that Jesus is our present-day propitiation is one of the themes of the book of Hebrews.  When the author of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as being our eternal High Priest (Hebrews 6:20), this suggests an ongoing, present-day, ministry of Jesus.  In thinking of the cross of Christ, it is commonly understood by Evangelical Christians, that it is a finished but continuing work. 

 

If you read Revelation, chapter 5, you will note that the apostle John was quite upset because he thought there was no one in all of the universe that could open the seven-sealed scroll.  He was told by one of the twenty-four elders that the Lion of the Tribe of Judah was the only one who could open the seven-sealed scroll.  John turned around, expecting to see a lion-type figure, but he did not see what he expected.  Instead, he saw Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb.  That is who, at least in one sense of the word, Jesus is right now.  He is the slaughtered Lamb.  Yes, He was slaughtered in past time, but, He is right now, in present time, seen as slaughtered. 

 

Let me explain this in human terms.  If a news program interviews a past president of the United States , that past president is still known as president, even though he no longer holds the job of president.  You might say the same of Jesus.  Even though He was our propitiation in past time, He is still known as our propitiation in present time.  This is how I understand the present tense that John used in 1 John 2:2.       

 

Let me sum up what John said, here in verses 1 and 2, especially in relation to the Greek words "parakletos" and "hilasmos."  John said that the Christian does sin, and, when he does sin, he has one who has been called alongside of God as one who withholds God's wrath from the Christian who sins.  I admit, these two verses are complicated and there are other interpretations.  All that I can say is that we are all learning, and, we will all continue to learn. 

 

One thing to note about the cross of Christ is that it was a multifaceted event.  Many things took place while Jesus was on the cross.  He paid the price to have our sins forgiven.  He redirected God's wrath from the life of the believer. He paved the way for reconciliation, justification, God's declaration of righteousness on our lives, and the reception of the Holy Spirit in our lives as well.      

     

John went on to say, in verse 2, that Jesus' atoning sacrifice, or act of propitiation, was for all of humanity.  It was for the people of the whole world.  This presents us with a long-standing debate.  John Calvin, a sixteenth-century reformer, (born 1509 - died 1564) believed that Jesus died for only those He had chosen to be saved long before the world was created.  That is not my opinion and it does not seem to be John's opinion here.  John 3:16 states that God so loved the world that whosoever believes will be saved.  Calvinism is thus in opposition to all of the "whosoever believes will be saved" verses, and there are many.  1 John 2:2 is one of many verses that state the Jesus is the 'hilasmos" for all humanity, not just the chosen few, and for that we should all be more than thankful.  It is for that reason you are saved today, if indeed you have accepted Jesus' offer of salvation and forgiveness.      

 

 

Review

 

John told us that Christians do sin and when we do sin we have the Righteous One, who is situated alongside God the Father as one who removes the wrath of God from those who accept His salvation.  This removal of wrath takes place at initial salvation, and according to the verb tense that John used, is a continuous action.      

 

Present-day Implications

 

The character trait of a true Christian as seen in this portion of John's letter is that he is one who knows he sins but also knows that Jesus acts on our behalf, who has, does, and will, deflect all wrath from our lives.  The apostle Paul made it clear that the Christian will not suffer wrath.  In 1 Thessalonians 1:10 he said this:

 

"And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."

 

In 1 Thessalonians 5:10 Paul said this:

 

"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

 

As Christians, the release from God's wrath, both now and in the future, should cause us to be very thankful for Jesus being our "Hilasmos."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 5

(1 John 2:3 - 6)

 

The Text

 

3 - This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands.  The one who says, "I have come to know him," and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete.  This is how we know we are in him:  The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 3

 

"This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands." 

 

Verse 3 begins with these words:  "This is how we know that we know Him."  There might well have been some confusion in the minds of John's Christian readers concerning whether they really knew God as they claimed.  This might have been due to the heresies that were being expounded by the false believers.  When people hear things over and over again, even if it is a false rumour, they often wonder if what they hear might really be true.  This is certainly the situation in our social-media world these days.  It would not surprise me that John's readers were questioning the validity of their faith. 

 

In this verse, John provided one way in which a Christian really knows he is a true believer.  John said that there is an obedience for New Testament Christians.  It is not obedience to law, in particular, the Law of Moses that is found in the Old Testament.  It is an obedience to Jesus because Jesus has replaced the Law of Moses in New Testament times.  You can see that in Romans 10:4 where Paul said that Jesus is the end, or the completion, of the Law.  In context, the law Paul had in mind was the Law of Moses.  The text reads: 

 

"For Christ is the end [the goal or the completion] of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

 

Paul said that if anyone wants to maintain a right standing before God, which is the righteousness he was writing about in Romans 10:4, then that right standing comes through our Lord Jesus Christ, not through any law, including the Law of Moses as seen in the Old Testament.     

 

For the Christian, obedience to the Law of Moses has been replaced with obedience to Jesus.  If that is the case, which it is, obedience to man-made Christian or church laws for maintaining one's salvation is clearly unbiblical.     

 

Note, in verse 1 John 2:3, that the word "know" is used twice in one sentence.  The first "know" is in the present tense.  This means that when John penned this letter his readers knew they were true Christians, or, knew they were in Him.  The same is true with us.  Our present-day knowing that we are indeed Christians is based on the second "know" in this verse.  This "know" is a perfect tense Greek verb.  A perfect tense Greek verb is a past action that has implications in present time.  The past action John had in mind would have been the time when his readers first began to know Jesus when they gave their lives to Him.  That past action of knowing has present-day implications in that the believers still knew that they were in Christ.  The same is true for us today.  This was another re-affirmation to John's readers.  One way they knew they were in Christ was because of their obedience to their Lord. 

 

The words "in Him" mean the same as the words "in Christ."  Paul often used the phrase "in Christ" to denote that someone was a true Christian.  This is how I understand the words "in Christ".  Jesus represents us before the Father right now.  He represented us while on the cross.  He lived the righteous life on our behalf.  His whole earthly life, and,  His present existence, is one of standing before God as our representative.  So, when God sees Jesus, our representative, in one sense of the word, He sees us, those He is representing.  A simplistic, Sunday-school version, way of saying this is that when God the Father looks at Jesus His Son, He sees the believer inside of Jesus, or, He sees the believer "in Christ."                 

 

Verse 4

 

"The one who says, 'I have come to know him,' and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 

 

Verse 4 speaks about the false Christian belief that you can know God without obeying Jesus.  Those holding to this doctrine would have said that they knew Jesus when in fact they did not know Him.  They clearly did not know Jesus because they did not keep His commands.  That is simple logic.  John called them liars, as he also did back in chapter 1.  They were liars because of their false claim to know Jesus.  Furthermore, they did not even believe in the real Jesus.  How, then, could they obey Him?

 

Obedience to Jesus is the mark of a true Christian as Jesus Himself said, in John 14:15.  The text reads:

 

"If you love me, you will keep my commands."

 

I often hear Christians say that they love Jesus.  Well, as they say, "the proof to that statement is in the pudding."  If a believer says he loves Jesus, his obedience to Jesus will prove that to be true.  To the degree, then, that one obeys Jesus is the degree to which he knows or loves Jesus. 

 

John had no problem calling false believers who claimed to be believers, liars.  They, with their heresies, were splitting God's community apart.  It was for this reason that John was so upset with them.  As bad as it is to embrace false beliefs, it is worse to teach them to others so as to split the church in half as it did in John's day. 

 

In today's Christian environment John would be accused of being judgmental.  What we should realize, that most do not realize these days, is Jesus actually told us to judge, in John 7:24.  Yes, He did put some restrictions on our judging.  He told us not to judge by appearance but judge righteously.  John 7:24 says this:

 

"Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment."

 

Many people believe that Jesus told us not to judge because of what He taught, as seen in Matthew 7:1.  He said this:

 

"Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged."

 

In context, Jesus was not forbidding us to judge.  He was simply telling us that the way we judge others will be the way in which others judge us in return.  There is nothing difficult to figure out about that.  It is just natural for us to treat others as they treat us.  If you judge others by appearance only, you should expect that others will judge you by appearance only.  It is for this reason Jesus told His disciples, and that includes Christians today, to judge righteously, in John 7:24.  In this way, if we are to be judged in return, righteous judgment will come our way.  Understanding the facts of the matter, and how God would view the facts of the matter, is the basis for Biblical judging.     

   

Verse 5

 

"But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete.  This is how we know we are in him:" 

 

We read, in verse 5, that John said that anyone who lives a life of obedience to Jesus, the love of God is made complete in him.  Instead of the word "complete" some translations use the word "perfect," which in my opinion, does not accurately represent what the Greek text says.  The CSB uses the word "complete."  Something that is complete does not necessarily mean it is perfect.

 

The Greek word "teleioo" is translated as "complete" in the CSB and "perfect" in the KJV.  The idea here is that God's love, which was demonstrated in the life of Jesus, has found its completion, or intended goal, in the lives of the true believers.    

 

The Greek verb translated as "made complete" is a perfect passive Greek verb.  A perfect verb is an action that has been completed in the past but has present-day implications.  This is why I say that the love of God that was demonstrated in the life of Jesus in past time is meant to find its completion in the lives of Christians in present time.  If, therefore, you obey Jesus and allow His love to be demonstrated in your life, then His love finds its completion in you, and that is one further proof that you really know Jesus and are a real Christian. 

 

Verse 6   

 

"The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked."

 

In light of the false Christians who claimed to know Jesus but did not, John said, in verse 6, that if you claim to remain, or live, in Jesus, then you should "walk," or live a lifestyle, like Jesus lived.  That is to say, as Jesus demonstrated selfless love ("agape" in Greek), so the Christian should exhibit selfless love in like manner.  

 

The word "remains" in this verse is important and at the same time has caused much debate over the centuries.  The debate concerning the word "remains" is over whether one can lose his salvation.  The word "remains" suggests to some that one might not always remain in Jesus and would then lose his salvation.  I will comment on this further when I comment on 1 John 2:24.  It is one of those difficult subjects to work through when studying, not only 1 John, but the rest of the Bible.   

 

                   

Review

 

True Christians do not need to live in doubt about their salvation.  They can know that they know that they are in right standing with God.  One way of knowing this is by their obedience to Him.  Obedience is one test of genuine faith.  Those who claim to know God but fail to obey Him in the way the Bible teaches are liars.  This sounds pretty harsh, but John, the loving pastor, had no problem being harsh when the truth of God was being misrepresented.  The gospel accounts also show Jesus being very harsh on those of the religious establishment of the day.  They claimed to know and follow God, but according to Jesus, they neither knew God nor obeyed Him.        

 

We must realize that John was not addressing what I call secondary Biblical doctrines in his letter.  For example, he was not addressing the mode of water baptism or end-time theology.  He was addressing the very foundational doctrines of who Jesus is and what constitutes sin.  We can be harsh towards those holding to fundamental heresies and claim to be Christian.  For those who simply disagree with us on secondary issues, we cannot be so harsh.  We must dialogue within the framework of Christian unity and sacrificial, agape-style, love that John has been writing about throughout his letter.       

 

 

Present-day Implications            

 

As true Christians we not only know about Jesus, we know Him on a personal basis, or at least we are in the process of getting to know Him personally.  This is vital to our lives as Christians.  Without developing our personal relationship with Jesus, there is no growth or maturity as a Christian.  This takes being available for Him and spending time with Him, in prayer, in Bible study, and in fellowship with those who Jesus has called you alongside in Christian community. 

 

Knowing Jesus in a personal sense is also important to the gospel message we preach.  Far too often these days the Christian gospel being preached is knowing about the historic Jesus and not knowing Him personally.  Developing a personal relationship with Jesus is what the Evangelical Church was founded upon. 

 

Knowing about Jesus saves no one.  I fear that the Evangelical Church of late has preached a "know about Jesus" gospel.  If someone simply knows about Jesus, based on the message we preach, and thus, thinks he is saved, we have deceived him.  He is not a true believer.  Knowing about Jesus intellectually is just a needed first step before knowing Jesus experientially.  We cannot stop at the first step.  If the gospel we preach is merely "knowing about Jesus," then we are doing a great disservice to those to whom we preach.  We are also doing a major disservice to Jesus Himself.  I think you would agree with me, that is a problem. 

 

Another thing we learn from this section of 1 John is that a true believer obeys Jesus, although at times may struggle with obedience.  That being said, our heart's desire is to live a life of obedience, something the non-believer has no desire to do.

 

We do need to take our sin and our disobedience seriously, but we should never get so bent out of shape over our failures that we condemn ourselves.  There is no condemnation for the believer, according to what Paul stated, in Romans 8:1 and 2.  He made it clear by saying this:    

 

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."

 

Paul made that statement right after he wrote a whole chapter on his battle with his sinful nature, the nature that caused him to sin.  Even with your sinful nature, there is no need to think you are condemned.  There is, however, discipline that comes our way from God, as seen in Hebrews 12:7.  That verse reads:

 

"Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?"

 

Being disciplined by God our Father should never be associated with the idea that God is condemning you.  It should be associated with being children of our heavenly Father.  All good fathers discipline their children. 

 

We should also know that the word discipline in New Testament thinking means more than punishment; more than a spanking, so to speak.  Discipline is all about training, teaching, and instructing, in the ways of the Lord.  Discipline is part of the Christian life.  Our problem these days is that we do not think in terms of being disciplined by God, our Father.  We do not know what it looks like and when it comes our way, we do not know we are being disciplined, and thus, we do not learn what we are expected to learn.  This results in a lack of Christian maturity that is clearly seen throughout the western-world church.         

 

The characteristic of a true Christian as seen in this section of 1 John is that a Christian, even though he will disobey Jesus at times, will live a life of obedience.  If that is you, then that is one proof you are a true Christian.

 

For those Christians who claim to love Jesus, they should be reminded that if they indeed love Jesus, they will obey Him, as seen in John 14:15.  It is for this reason I maintain that the degree to which one obeys Jesus is the degree to which he really loves Jesus. 

 

We should also be reminded that obedience to Jesus has replaced obedience to the Law of Moses, and really, to any man-made ecclesiastical law that is meant to maintain our salvation.  This is important to understand since much of Evangelical Christianity teaches its adherents to obey certain laws within the Law of Moses in order to be a good Christian, or, in order to maintain one's salvation.  The tithing laws and the Sabbath laws are two such examples.  The problem is that most of the rest of the six hundred and thirteen commands in the Law of Moses are ignored by us.  The Law of Moses does not permit us to obey some of its laws and disregard the rest.  It is all or nothing. 

 

If you are a New Testament believer, and that is the only kind of true believer there is, you obey Jesus.  The subject about how a Christian should relate to the Law of Moses is widely misunderstood.  It is a topic that is too large to address here.  I have addressed this issue in my book entitled "Should I Tithe?"     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 6

(1 John 2:7 - 11)

 

The Text

 

7 - Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning.  The old command is the word you have heard.  Yet I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.  The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.  10 The one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.  11 But the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 7

 

"Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning.  The old command is the word you have heard." 

 

The word "friends" in the phrase "dear friends" is translated from the Greek word "agapetos" which some of you might recognize.  One of the most well-known Greek New Testament words in recent decades is the Greek word "agape."  This word is translated as "love" in the English New Testament.  The word "agape" went out of use in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world, probably because it meant "selfless or sacrificial love."  People preferred other Greek words to express love, such as "philos" that meant "brotherly or reciprocal love."  The Greek word "ludus" meant playful love.  The Greek word "pragma" meant "longstanding love.  The Greek word "philautia" meant "love of self."  Then there was "eros."  That Greek word meant erotic or sexual love.  No matter the culture or the times, "eros" is always popular. 

 

Because the word "agape" went out of common use, Christians adopted the word to denote God's selfless love.  "Agapetos," as seen here, in verse 7, finds its roots in "agape."  For this reason some versions of the Bible translate "agapetos" as "dearly beloved" instead of "dear friends," as seen here in the CSB version of the New Testament.  I prefer the words "dearly beloved" because they better reflect the Greek word "agapetos."  The difficulty with the words "dearly beloved" is that they are becoming outdated or else have a different meaning these days.  

 

In verse 7, John said that he was not writing his readers a new command but an "old command."  The two phrases "which you have heard from the beginning" and "the old command is the word you have heard" helps us understand what command John was writing about.  As seen in 1 John 1:1, the words "in the beginning" refer back to the days when Jesus was on earth.  This means that the "old command" heard from the beginning refers to the gospel message that John and others preached to them.  The gospel message would have included the command that Jesus gave His original followers to love one another, as seen in John 13:34.

 

"I give you a new command: Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another."  

 

The new command that Jesus spoke to His disciples while He was on earth became the old command some sixty plus years later when John penned this letter. 

 

The new command spoken by Jesus was not exactly new when He spoke it either.  It was new in the sense that it had new applications and that He, not the Law of Moses, spoke it.  This new command could be found in the old commands of the Law of Moses as well.  Deuteronomy 6:5 says this:

 

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."

 

Leviticus 19:18 says this:

 

"Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD."

 

You could, thus, say that the new command that Jesus spoke was not exactly new, but it might well have been new in the sense that Jesus' new command summed up, or you could say, replaced, all of the six hundred and thirteen laws found in the Law of Moses.  In this sense of the word it was a new command to His audience.  It was a command that was probably lost in all of the rabbinical laws that were meant to interpret the Law of Moses.  I believe this is what Jesus meant, in Matthew 22:37 through 39.  The text reads: 

 

"He [Jesus] said to him, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

 

Verse 8

 

"Yet I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining."

 

In verse 7, John said that he was not writing a new command but an old command.  Here, in verse 8, he said he was writing a new command.  So what was it?  Was it a new command or an old command?  There have been many answers to these questions.

 

Jesus called it a new command even though the new command had its roots in the old commands.  John might well have been doing the same thing.  When these believers first heard the message of salvation, they would have heard the new command that Jesus spoke decades earlier.  By then it was an old command but new to John's readers.  Now, after a messy church split prompted by the heretics and their heresies, the old command to love one another became new again.  That is to say, the old command to love the brotherhood of believers had to be revisited and reinforced in the lives of the believers after a nasty church split.     

 

The rest of verse 8 may be confusing to some.  John said that the "darkness is passing" while "light is already shining."  It is easy to understand that the light of the gospel was already shining.  We know from 1 John 1:5 that God Himself is the light.  The light was already shining in the lives of the true believers and the message they proclaimed to the culture in which they lived.  It could be seen in the love they had for one another. 

 

How can we understand John's point about the darkness passing?  The verb "is passing" is a present tense Greek verb.  John did not say the darkness had already passed or that it will pass at some future date.  He said the darkness, as he was writing these words, was in the process of passing away.  There has been much speculation concerning just what John was getting at here.  I am not convinced that we actually know what he had in mind when he penned these words.  If the darkness was passing away near the end of the first-century, it is taking a very long time to completely pass away.  As a matter of fact, history shows us that the darkness, especially as it relates to the church and the lives of Christians, got worse after John wrote his letter.

 

Here is my speculative reasoning for why John said that the darkness was passing away.  John could have been speaking of the darkness that was seen in the heresies that split the church in half.  It might well have been that the split was complete and the unity of the believers was returning as seen in the love the true believers had for one another.  I suggest, and it is a suggestion, that the context might give some kind of credibility to my speculation, but again, it is pure speculation and I could be wrong. 

 

Verse 9  

 

"The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now."  

  

In verse 9 the words "who hates" are a present Greek participle.  That means that the word "hates" describes the person spoken of in this verse, not simply his action of hating.  It speaks about who he is as a person.  You can, thus, understand that those to whom John was referring were haters.  They did not just hate from time to time.  Hating was inherent in who they were.  These haters lived a lifestyle of hating.  They were the false believers, the heretics that had split the Christian community in half.

 

Verse 10   

 

"The one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him."

 

Verse 10 tells us that the "one who loves his brother remains in the light."  The words "who loves" in our English text is a verb.  In the Greek text the words "who loves" is a present participle.  The participle "loves" says something about those to whom John was referring.  The participle implies that John's readers were lovers, and specifically, lovers of the brotherhood of believers.  The emphasis here is not on the acts of love, but on the person, who by his new nature in Christ, is a lover.  I suggest that there is a difference between doing loving acts and being a full-time lover of people.

 

The Greek word "meno," which is translated as "remains" in the CSB, or "abides," in some other translations, means "to abide, to dwell, or to live."  This tells me that the full-time lover of his brothers and sisters in Christ is one who does not just frequent the light of God from time to time but actually lives in the light of God and the light of God lives in him.  Remember, the word "light" in Biblical terms refers to qualities such as goodness, righteousness, or something similar.  This implies that the full-fledged lover is always doing good things for his brothers and sisters in Christ.  He is in contrast to the one who lives in darkness, as seen in the previous verse, and who had left fellowship with those in the church community.

 

The Greek verb "meno" is a present active indicative Greek verb.  This means that the full-time lover of the Christian brotherhood lives in the light of God love right now in present time, and, that is a certainty.  It can be seen in his active acts of love by all who cross his path.   

 

The Greek word "skandalon" in its original usage was a trap to catch animals.  This word is often translated as "stumble" in many versions of the New Testament.  So the idea here is that the one who is a lover of his brothers and sisters in Christ does nothing to cause his brothers and sisters to fall into a trap that might snare them on their walk of faith.  The opposite would be true.  He does all he can to help those with whom Jesus has placed him alongside in the Body of Christ.      

 

Verse 11  

 

"But the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

 

Verse 11 reverts back to referring to the person who walks, lives, and spends his life, in the evil of darkness.  John said that he is a hater of the brotherhood.  Again, this is because the word "hate" here is a present Greek participle, as was the case with the word "love" in the last verse.  One who lives a life of hatred is blind to where he needs to go in life.  He is blind to the real and important eternal issues of life because his life of hatred consumes him and prevents him from living as he should live.  He is simply lost, and one who is so lost is not saved.

 

It is common knowledge that one who is caught up in a life of negative emotions, like hatred, does a real disservice, not just to those around him, but to himself.  Such negativism will eat that person up alive, so to speak.  It is like a cancer that attacks the soul.  This is not just something that I say as a Christian.  It is an established medical concept, something that is clearly seen.  Out-of-control negativism affects every aspect of one's life.  It destroys the quality of life that we all seek.  It hurts one's decision-making, blurs his conscience, devastates relationships, and, sets him on a path of life that is far from satisfying.            

 

 

Review

 

Throughout this letter one thing John has been doing is presenting to his readers the character qualities of a true Christian.  In this section, he describes the true believer as one who loves his brothers and sisters in Christ because by his new nature in Christ, he is a lover.  One may struggle with such love at times but it is his desire to express sacrificial love to those God places before him at any given time.  On the other end of the spectrum, the hater walks around in darkness.  He is overcome with his hatred that effects his daily activities of life.      

 

 

Present-day Applications

 

John presents us with another character quality of a true Christian.  He or she is one who lives in the light of God's love, which results in him or her being a lover of those whom Jesus has placed him or her alongside in the Body of Christ.  If, therefore, you are a true believer, you are one who loves the Christian brotherhood.  That is your new nature in Christ.  This does not mean you love perfectly.  You do, however, have the heart-felt desire to be a lover and it is expressed in your life in many ways.

 

Those who are haters, and you probably know some, just do not walk in the light of God's love.  As Jesus said, "you know them by their fruit" (Matthew 12:33).  Lovers love.  Haters hate.  It is that simple.

 

Sacrificial love, as expressed by the Greek word "agape," is not always seen in that which we call church.  Over the centuries it has been sadly lacking.  One prime example of this is seen in the Reformation Movement of the sixteenth century.  The Reformers broke away from an apostate Catholicism that actually killed people for their disobedience to church law, church authorities, and church doctrine.  For example, many were killed over disagreements concerning the doctrine of the Trinity.  You would think that the reformers would have learned a lesson from such brutal lack of love, but they didn't.  Many reformers were executed by fellow reformers because of doctrinal differences.  That definitely was not agape, sacrificial love.     

 

Over the years the church has split over countless nasty arguments that have clearly demonstrated the lack of the love John wrote about in this letter.  It is one thing to separate over such basic theological issues that John addressed here, but that is seldom the case in our western-world church.  We often split up a local congregation over non-important issues, like style of music and other such things.  If Jesus has placed you alongside others in His New Testament body, then leaving those with whom He has placed you is a serious matter and must be well thought out. 

 

In Jesus' prayer found in John 17, He prayed to His Father that His followers would be one, even as He and His Father are one.  John 17:21 says this:

 

"May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me."

 

I think we should take Jesus' words seriously.  The premise of unity in the church is seen through the lens of agape, that is, sacrificial love. 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 7

(1 John 2:12 - 14)

 

The Text

 

12 - I am writing to you, little children,
since your sins have been forgiven
on account of his name. 
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning.  I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one.  14 I have written to you, children, because you have come to know the Father.  I have written to you, fathers, because you have come to know
the one who is from the beginning.
I have written to you, young men,
because you are strong, God’s word remains in you, and you have conquered the evil one.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 12

 

"I am writing to you, little children,
since your sins have been forgiven
on account of his name." 

 

John's intent in writing this part of his letter seems to have been two-fold.  It was meant to be both an encouragement and a re-affirmation of the faith of those to whom he was writing.  There are two reasons for this encouragement and re-affirmation.  The first reason stems from the fact that the heretics and their heretical teaching had split the church in half, which most likely caused some doubt, insecurity, and confusion in the minds of the believers.  The second reason is due to what John has already written in this letter.  For example, in chapter 1, verse 6, He said that if one claimed to have fellowship with God yet lived in darkness, that one lied and did not know the truth.  He made similar strong statements in chapter 1, verse 8, chapter 2, verse 1 and 4.  Just in case these statements might have caused some doubts in the minds of his readers concerning their salvation, John most likely felt it necessary to re-affirm their good standing before God in this portion of his letter.  To be clear, John was not chastising those to whom he was writing.  He was encouraging them.               

 

In verse 12, we see the words "little children" as we have seen before in John's letter, but this time the words "little children" may mean something different than they meant in earlier verses.  The words "little children" may refer to John's readers in general, as we saw in verse 1, of chapter 2.  However, many Bible teachers believe that the words "little children" in this instance refers to young, or, newly-reborn, Christians.  They think this because John also refers to fathers and young men.  They think that John was addressing people's maturity level in the Lord, in this verse and in the next verse.  On the other hand, maybe John was directing his thoughts, in this verse, to young-in-age children.   There have been many attempts to get into John's mind concerning the words "little children," "fathers," and "young men."   It is difficult to read John's mind on this matter, and I really do not think it makes much of a difference to the main points that he was making.

 

The Greek verb tense for "have been forgiven" is important.  "Have been forgiven" is a Greek perfect passive indicative verb.  The perfect tense means that at one specific time in the past, the sins of those to whom John was writing had been forgiven.  The past action of forgiveness, then, has important present-day implications to those to whom John was writing.  Indicative means that this forgiveness of sins was, and still is, a certainty.  There should be no doubt in one's mind that his sins have been forgiven, although in the minds of some of John's readers, they may have had some doubts due to their present circumstances.  Passive means that the process of forgiveness has nothing to do with the one being forgiven.  It has everything to do with the One, Jesus, who forgave the sins.  Again, this tells Christians that all, not just some, of their sins have already been forgiven.  What I have been saying, and Colossians 2:13 also tells us, is that all sins, past, present, and future sins, have been deleted from the heavenly record.  This should bring an assurance to all true Christians concerning forgiveness and their present standing before God, and that applied also to those to whom John was writing.

 

The Greek word translated as "forgive" in the New Testament is "apheimi."  This was an accounting term in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  In terms of sin, this means that all sins associated with the sinner who has been forgiven have been deleted from God's record-book, whatever that record-book may look like.  The sinner who has repented, handed his life over to Jesus, and received the Holy Spirit into his life, has no sin associated with his name in the heavenly record.  This fact is fundamental to the Christian life and if misunderstood will negatively affect how a Christian lives. 

 

The Greek conjunction "hoti" that is translated as "since" in the CSB and "because" in other translations in this verse is best thought of in terms of being a declarative statement and not a statement of cause and effect.  This means that this is a declaration that the sins of John's readers have been definitely been forgiven.    

 

The words "His name" need some thought.  Think of "His name" this way.  Let us say I work for Jim's Woodworking Services.  When I go out on a woodworking job, I am not representing myself.  I am representing Jim's Woodworking Services, and thus, I need to work as Jim wants me to work.  His good name, not my good name, is under scrutiny when I work.  I am not only working for a company name.  I am working for the company that the name represents.  I must, then, work as Jim and those in authority in the company want me to work.   

  

When it comes to Jesus, the name of Jesus means not just His name, but all that His name represents.  John was not just talking about Jesus' earthly name here.  He was talking about all of whom Jesus is.  We are forgiven, then, on account of all who Jesus is and what He has done, including what He did on the cross.  Remember, 1 John 2:2 states that right now in present time Jesus is situated alongside of God as the slaughtered Lamb of God that John 1:29 says takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus not only offered Himself as a sacrifice in the past, His present-day appearance as the slaughtered Lamb who is situated alongside of God speaks about His very nature or essence of being one who sacrifices Himself on our behalf.

       

We should never understand "the name of Jesus" to be some simple phrase that we attach to the end of a prayer.  When Scripture speaks of the name of Jesus it is in reference to all who Jesus is and ever will be.             

 

Verse 13

 

"I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning.  I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one."

 

Note the conjunction "because" in this verse.  As in the last verse "because" is translated from the Greek word "hoti," but, in the last verse the CSB translated "hoti" as "since."  Why the difference in translation I do not know, but scholars suggest that the Greek word "hoti" should be understood as being declarative.  That means that John's statement is a positive declaration that these fathers did know God, even if they had doubts about their knowing from time to time.       

 

The verb "you have come to know" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.  Perfect means that these fathers came to know Jesus at one specific time in the past and still knew Him when John wrote this letter.  Indicative means that this knowing was a certainty, despite some uncertainty that some of John's readers might have had when he wrote this letter.  Active means that these fathers were the ones who knew.  According to what John said, here, you can see how some Bible teachers think that John had spiritually-mature people in mind when he used the word "fathers," in this verse.  The word "fathers" does seem to suggest mature Christians.  Whatever the case, what John said to these fathers, the little children, and the young men, can certainly apply to all believers in all times and cultures.      

 

The words "in the beginning" might well refer to Genesis 1 in this case and not to the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, as was the case in 1 John 1:1.  In John's gospel account, as seen in John 1:1, "in the beginning" is in reference to Genesis 1 and it appears to me that is how we should understand the words "in the beginning" here.  If this is the case, then John was saying that the One, meaning Jesus, already existed in the beginning when all things were created, whenever that was.  This fact is fundamental to Christian doctrine.  Jesus has always existed in one form or another, and He will always exist throughout eternity.  He lives outside of our time-space environment.  You might say that Jesus lives in the "eternal now."  All this tells us that Jesus is divine, and that fact is basic to Christian doctrine.               

 

The word "know" in "you have come to know" should be thought of in terms of knowing Jesus personally or experientially.  It means more than simply knowing about Jesus.

 

John went on to say that he was writing to young men because they have "overcome the evil one."  The evil one in New Testament terms refers to the devil. 

 

The Greek verb "have overcome" is a perfect indicative active verb.  Perfect means that at one particular point in the past these young men overcame the devil and were still in a place, or state, of victory when it came to the devil when John was writing this letter.  The moment these young men overcame the devil in the past would have been the moment they handed their lives over to Jesus, thus winning the fight against Satan as it pertained to their initial salvation.  Indicative means that this overcoming was a certainty.  There was no doubt about their overcoming of Satan.  Active means that when they overcame, it was an action accomplished by them.  Of course, they would have overcome the devil only with the help of the Holy Spirit that led them to salvation.  Without the Holy Spirit, whether at initial salvation or during one's life as a Christian, there is no overcoming of Satan.      

 

I would suggest that even though these people lived in a present state of overcoming Satan, we should not understand that to mean the fight with the evil one was over.  There are sufficient Biblical passages that state our fight with the devil is an ever-present reality.  Ephesians 6:10, and following, is just one well-known example of this.  It is just one of those many Biblical paradoxes.  That is to say, "We have won the fight, and, we still have a fight to win."      

 

Verse 14   

 

"I have written to you, children, because you have come to know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning.  I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, God’s word remains in you, and you have conquered the evil one."

 

You will notice a slight difference in verse 14 from verse 13.  Verse 13 begins with "I am writing" in all three cases.  Verse 14 begins with "I have written" in all three instances.  There has been much speculation over why John switched verb tenses here, but I don't think it makes a difference in the points that he was making. 

 

John wrote to the little children because they had come "to know" the Father.  The word "know" should be understood as knowing God personally, or experientially, at least to some degree.  The verb "come to know" is a perfect indicative active verb.  This means that those to whom John wrote first knew the Father at some prior date and still knew Him when John penned these words.  This knowing was a certainty.  Active means it was these people who were doing the knowing, and again, even though John did not say it here, their knowing was aided by the Holy Spirit.  I am sure John would agree with me on that point.

 

You should know that the word "Father" is not found in the Greek text in this particular verse.  The pronoun "Him" is what is written in the Greek text.  The CSB translators think that "Him" refers to the "Father."  The context would seem to suggest this.

 

John then proceeded to address the young men.  John said that these young men were "strong" and because God's "word remains" in them they had "overcome the evil one," the devil.  As in the above statements, the words "you have overcome" are a perfect indicative active verb.  At some prior point in their lives, these young men overcame the devil and they were still in the state of being present-day over-comers, and that was a certain fact. 

 

The reason why these young men were present-day over-comers of the devil is because God's Word abided, or lived, in them.  The Word of God for us today is found in the Bible.  I maintain that the Bible is not simply a book to be read or even studied.  It is the Word of God that must sink into our heads and then into our hearts, from which it is lived out in our daily lives.  Only when we live the Word of God can we mature as Christians and overcome both self and Satan.  Without the precepts of the Bible living within a person, along with the Holy Spirit involvement in the person’s life, there is no spiritual growth. 

 

 

Review                     

 

In part, John was saying that there is no maturity for a Christian without knowing God and having the Word of God abide in one's life.  Only then comes maturity, and part of maturity is overcoming the devil.  Obviously John believed that the devil, or at least one of his agents, can temp the Christian away from the truth.  I do believe that is true, but more often than not, we are our own worst enemy.  We are tempted to sin because of our fallen sinful nature.  The devil may help us sin, but we really don't need his help in this respect.  James 1:14 confirms this to be true.  It reads:

 

"But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire."

 

The perfect indicative active verb tense John used throughout this section is important.  John used it in reference to little children, the young men, and the fathers.  A perfect indicative active Greek verb tense is an action that first took place in the past, with present-day implications.  There is no doubt about the present-day implications that resulted from the past action.  This was important to John's readers because it re-affirmed to them that they were indeed real Christians.  They gave their lives to Jesus in the past and that past action was still real in their lives as John penned this letter. 

 

You will remember that part of the reason for John writing this letter was to encourage his Christian readers who had suffered much trouble caused by the heretics, which might have caused confusion in their lives.  These verses were a re-affirmation that John's readers were real Christians and were still on the right track, and that was despite any confusion or doubts his readers might have had due to the heretics and their divisive doctrines.     

 

 

Present-day Applications

 

Everything that John said to these three groups of people, whoever they were, can apply to us today.  We have no excuse.  We must begin to know the Father and then progress in this knowing.  We must have the Word of God living within us each and every day of our lives.  Only then can we overcome both Satan and self.  I have said it before and I say it again: as Christians we have no excuse for not maturing in the Lord.  That which John said to his readers he should be able to say to us today.  2 Peter 1:3 confirms this.  It reads:

 

"His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."

 

The character quality of a real Christian, as seen in this passage, is that he is capable of overcoming the devil.  We, thus, have no excuse.  As the apostle Peter confirmed in the above verse, we cannot say, "I am only human."  With the Holy Spirit living within us, we are more than human.  As a matter of Biblical fact, according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, after receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives, we are brand new human creatures, and we are this because the very Spirit of the Almighty God lives within us.  We are nothing like our neighbours who do not have the Holy Spirit in their lives.    I believe that 2 Corinthians 5:17 shows this to be true.  It reads as follows:

 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!"

       

Concerning being a new creation in Christ, I say this.  As a man is different from a woman, so a Christian is different from a non-Christian

 

 

 

 

Lesson 8

(1 John 2:15 - 17)

 

The Text

 

15 - Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  16 For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the Father, but is from the world.  17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 15

 

"Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 

 

This verse begins with the verb "do not love."  This is a present imperative Greek verb.  That means right now, in real time, we must never love the world or that which is in the world.  The imperative tense means that this is not a suggestion to think over.  It is a command to obey. 

 

The Greek word "kosmos" is translated as "world" in this verse.  This word means "a harmonious arrangement or ordering of things."  Kosmos could have been used in many ways when John wrote this letter.  He could have said that chairs aligned in rows were a kosmos.  Over time this Greek word came to mean the material world and the universe.  John used the word "world" to mean the ordered surrounding culture in the day in which he lived. 

 

We are not to love, "agape" in Greek, any aspect of our surrounding culture.  Jesus said that our culture was under the control of the devil.  He called Satan "the prince of this world."   See John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11.  Paul alluded to this in Ephesians 2:2 when he said this:

 

"... in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler [prince] of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient."

 

John and Paul were on the same page concerning Satan's rule over man-made, humanistic-orientated, even hedonistic, cultures.  Both men believed that when you gave your life to Jesus, you left your surrounding culture that was heavily influenced by Satan in order to live in the culture of God.  The culture of God differs drastically from the culture of man.  Why would anyone ever want to return to such a fallen, human-orientated, culture after living in the culture of God?     

 

This does not mean that we should become hermits and hide ourselves away from the world, as the monks in times past have done.  We live in the world as representatives of Jesus.  We do not give ourselves to what our culture has to offer because we have already given ourselves to Jesus, and Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters.  Matthew 6:24 says this:

 

"No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money."

 

Notice the Greek word "agape" that is translated as "love" in John's letter.  "Agape" means "sacrificial love."  It was a word that went out of general use in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.  For this reason Christians began to use it to describe God's sacrificial love, which was seen in Jesus' selfless act of love on the cross.  John was telling his readers not to sacrifice themselves to their surrounding culture.  We can benefit from our culture, work in it, live in it, but not sacrifice ourselves to it.  We seek first God's kingdom and not the kingdoms of this world, as Jesus commanded.  Matthew 6:33 says this:

 

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you."

 

Note that Jesus did not say how or when all these things would be provided to His followers.  Besides that, the context of this statement does not suggest that all of the good life our culture has to offer is included in the words "all things."  The context clearly implies that the necessities of life, and that is defined by God and not us, will be provided to those who place Jesus and His kingdom first in his life.  This is one of Jesus' statements that has been misrepresented and misapplied in today's western-world Christianity.     

 

Verse 16   

 

"For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the Father, but is from the world." 

 

Verse 16 begins with "For everything in the world."  I suggest that everything means everything.  Nothing in the culture around us is excluded.

 

There is much that our flesh and our eyes can lust after that is in our surrounding culture.  As a matter of fact, all cultures promote lust and unbiblical cravings in one way or another.  That certainly was the case in John's day as it also is in our day.  We should understand the word "lust" to mean "to covet or to crave."  For the Christian, we must not covet anything in the world because that distracts us from our mission as Christians.  It also interferes with our ability to love God as we should.

 

The apostle Peter said something we should take seriously concerning the surrounding culture of his day and that I believe would also apply to us.  In the first Christian sermon ever preached, he said this, in Acts 2:40.

 

"With many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, 'Be saved from this corrupt generation! '"

 

Peter viewed the culture of his day as being corrupt and something to be saved, or rescued, from.  I believe we should view our culture in the same way today.  I certainly do not think it is a stretch of our imaginations to believe our culture, whether in politics, business, law, education, religion, the arts, or whatever, is corrupt.  A few minutes of watching a twenty-four hour news channel on television proves that to be true.     

 

I remind you that the false Christians in John's day believed that their spirits were pure and holy while their flesh, or bodies, were sinful.  They considered their real self to be spirit.  Their material self was merely a suitcase to house their souls.  For this reason they did not worry about lusting after all that their surrounding culture had to offer them, and there was much their culture enticed them with.  They, in fact, indulged in all that the world had to offer, and they enjoyed all they indulged in.  What John was saying here was in direct contrast to the heresies that were being promoted in his day.

 

As I have said before, in many respects John is a black-and-white person.  There was little-to-no gray area with John's thinking.  We noted, back in chapter one, that there is only light and darkness in God's thinking.  There was no gray.  Either one lives in the light of God or lives in the darkness of lusting after sin.  One, therefore, cannot love the world and love God at the same time.  One cannot give himself to God and give himself to the world at the same time.  You cannot serve God and serve the world at the same time.  It is not really difficult to figure that out, but in today's western-world Christianity; we seemed to have missed this point.  

 

Verse 17

 

"And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever."

 

Verse 17 says that "the world with its lust is passing away."  You might wonder why John made this statement.  It has been nineteen hundred years and the world around us has not yet passed away.  If the world, or culture, was passing away in John's day, its passing is taking a long time.  We can do nothing else but agree with John.  Right now, we believe, that all of what the world is, is passing away.  At some future date, it will pass into extinction.  To narrow it down even further, the culture in which you live, will pass away.  That is a historic fact.   

 

All cultures and civilizations do pass away.  History shows us that all cultures rise and all cultures fall, and that would include our present twenty-first-century western-world culture.  The Greco-Roman culture in John's day passed away as well.  One might think in these terms when considering what John meant by the world, or an ordered culture, passing away.  The culture, in which John lived, did eventually pass away into extinction. 

 

In Biblical terms, the rise and fall of civilizations and cultures is a matter of God's doing.  Daniel 2:21 says this:

 

"He changes the times and the season, he removes kings and establishes kings"

 

Daniel 4:25 says this:

 

"You [the king of Babylon ] will be driven away from people to live with the wild animals.  You will feed on grass like cattle and be drenched with dew from the sky for seven periods of time, until you acknowledge that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, and he gives them to anyone he wants."

 

These two passages from Daniel clearly tell us that God is the Sovereign One over cultures and civilizations.  It is He, not us, who ultimately causes cultures to either rise or fall.    

 

In contrast to the world passing away John said that "those who do the will of God will remain forever."  The verb tense here is a present participle.  You could, therefore, translate these words this way.  "Those who are doers of the will by their very nature will remain forever."   The participle puts the emphasis on the person, by his very nature, being a present-day doer of God's will.  He is not just one who does God's will from time to time.  I believe there is a big difference between the two kinds of people.  Of course, the Bible teaches that we will not remain on this present earth.  Eventually God will create a new earth for His people to live on, as seen at the end of the book of Revelation.  Revelation 21:1 says this:

 

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more."        

 

In the end, all cultures, civilizations, and nations will pass away.

 

Review

 

The simple Biblical fact that we learn from this portion of Scripture is that if we are to follow Jesus' command to seek His kingdom first, then we cannot give ourselves to the surrounding culture in which we live.  Our culture, no matter how godly you think it might be or might have been, is heavily influenced by Satan, the prince of this world.       

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

In today's western-world, Christians are being tempted with lustful coveting by our culture more than ever.  The temptation to lust, to give ourselves to, what our culture has to offer is all around us.  It is what the advertising industry is all about.  Whether it is television ads, radio ads, print ads, or internet ads, they all play on our inherent tendency to crave for more than what we need and more than what is good for us.

 

In past generations, in the western world, all that a family owned was usually stored in its home, but not anymore.  There has been a whole industry built up in recent years that provides us with storage units where we can house our possessions that we have no room for in our homes.  I think that shows how hedonistic (loving of self) our culture has become. 

In decades past large families, except maybe if you lived on a farm, lived in small houses.  Today, it is just the opposite.  Small families live in large houses.    

 

It is my thinking that, in the western world, much of what we call Christianity has given in to the lusts of this world.  As Christians, and as the church, we care more about our possessions than we should.  We are not seeking first the Kingdom of God and it is showing in our ineffectiveness as Christians and as the church in representing Jesus the way He requires.  We are so involved in activities outside of church that we have little to no time for the important things of the Kingdom of God .  

 

The call to western-world Christianity, and that includes the Evangelical Church , is to return to our first love, as Jesus told the church at Ephesus , in Revelation 2:6.  If we don't, we will lose our lampstand as Jesus said would happen with the Ephesian church.  The losing of our lampstand means the loss of our church.  The word "lampstand" in Revelation 2:6 means the church that is lit by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  See Revelation 1:20.  Upon losing our church, there might well be a shell of a church left, as we see around us today, but a shell of a church is not what constitutes a church according to the New Testament.      

 

I am sure you can recall when you first fell in love with your spouse.  Nothing else in life seemed to have mattered.  Everything, except the love of your life, was a blur.  At times your mental capacity to think properly was severely sapped.  The call by Jesus to the Ephesian church was for it to return to the days when nothing else much mattered except for Jesus. 

 

Human tendency over time is to lose the intensity or passion for anything we first loved.  It is ironic to me that the very church John was addressing in his first letter, and where he lived, was the very church Jesus had to rebuke for losing its first love.  This must have saddened John's heart immensely. 

 

The main character trait of a Christian we read about in this passage is that he is a lover of God and His ways.  He is not a lover of the world around him, in which he lives.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 9

(1 John 2:18 - 23)

 

The Text

 

18 - Children, it is the last hour.  And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. By this we know that it is the last hour.  19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.  20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.  21 I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth.  22 Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son.  23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 18

 

"Children, it is the last hour.  And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.  By this we know that it is the last hour." 

 

Verse 18 begins with the word "children."  As I have said earlier, the words "little children," or just "children," as seen here, are in reference, not to little children in age, but to all John's readers.  The one exception to this would be found in 1 John 2:15 through 17, but that would depend on how you interpret that passage.   John, at the time of writing was an old man and he viewed his readers as children in the faith, just as Paul viewed Timothy as his son in the faith.

 

John then made what has become a somewhat confusing statement.  He said that "this is the last hour."  John seems to have said that the last hour, and most would believe that it is in reference to the last days of this present age, had already come.  You see a similar wording in Revelation 1:3 where John repeated Jesus in saying that the "time is near."  Both the words "last hour" and "time is near" suggest that John must have thought that the end of this age was almost upon him.  You might say it this way.  In prophetic time, it was five minutes to mid-night. 

Some view this bit of confusion as a problem.  It has been about nineteen-hundred years and the end of this age has not yet arrived, so how could John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have proclaimed it to be the last hour when he penned this letter?  There have been many attempts at answering this question over the centuries, and I am not sure that what I might add will bring further clarity. 

 

One thing we do know is that the New Testament uses the term "last days," and I would also say the term "last hour," in what can be understood in two ways.  They can be understood in terms of the final days or years, especially the seven years of tribulation, that end this age.  The other way they can be understood is that those days began at the Day of Pentecost, as seen in Peter's quotation of Joel 2:28 to 32 that begins with the words "in the last days."  By using this Old Testament prophetic passage that spoke of the last days, Peter was saying that from that point on, i.e. from the time when the Holy Spirit was given to the believers, as seen in Acts2, it was considered to be the last days.  However, if you read all of Joel's prophecy, the last days that Joel had in mind were the last few days that would end this age.  Peter thus put a different prophetic spin to Joel's prophecy, but that is a topic for another day.

 

I do not think we can read John's mind on this matter, so whatever any of us say concerning this is somewhat speculative.  What I can say is this.  The common thinking among first-century Christians was that the last days began on the Day of Pentecost, but they also understood that there would also be a period of time at the very end of this age that is also considered the last days.  In those future days the man whom John called the "antichrist" would appear on the world scene.  With this in mind, John admitted that the antichrist had not yet appeared, but many lesser antichrists, or those with a spirit of antichrist, were already on the scene.  If, then, only the spirit of antichrist was active in the world in John's day, then the real antichrist was still yet to come.   

 

Something else to consider is that we do not know if John was using the term "last hour" as a synonym to "last days" or not.  If he equated the last hour with the last days, then we might not have a problem because in one sense of the word the last days or last hour began on the Day of Pentecost, as seen in Acts 2.  It is my thinking that John would have understood the last hour to be the last days.  

 

The verb "have come" in the phrase "many antichrists have come" is a perfect tense Greek verb.  This simply means that at one point prior to John writing this letter antichrists began to rise up and they were still present to poison the church when John was writing this letter.  This being the case, we also have an abundance of antichrists in our world today that are afflicting the church.  

 

John ended this verse by saying that "this is how we know it is the last hour."  One clear sign by which we can know we are in the last hour or last days is the presence of those with the spirit of antichrist in them.  Then, when it comes to the very last days, that is, the end of this age, when we see the long-awaited-for antichrist rise to world-wide dominance, we know the end of the age is upon us. 

 

The fact that John said there were already many antichrists in the world, and the fact that he equated these antichrists with the last hour, provide evidence that he understood, like Peter, that the last hour or last days, began on the Day of Pentecost.    

 

When thinking of the antichrist, considering the Greek word translated as "anti," this man will appear on that world scene as one who is both against Christ and comes in the place of Christ.  He comes to the world making himself out to be the real Christ. 

 

The apostle Paul wrote about the antichrist but he called him the "lawless one," and the "man of sin," who "exalts himself" over all that which is called God, and in fact demands worship as if he were God.  You can read about what Paul had to say on this matter, in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 through 12.

 

Verse 19

 

"They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us."

 

I have mentioned verses 18 and 19 earlier in this commentary.  We read here that the heretics who were promoting the false claims had already left the church at some point prior to John writing this letter.  This had been one major church split, and it was not a split in the way you might think of church splits today.  This was not just one of many congregations in a certain locality that had split.  This was a major divide in an entire geographical area that spread beyond one particular city.    

 

This division among the believers reminds me of a division that the apostle Paul addressed, in 1 Corinthians 11:19.  Concerning the division within the Corinthian community of believers he said this:

 

"Indeed, it is necessary that there be factions among you, so that those who are approved may be recognized among you."

 

Paul was definitely against division in the church.  You know this from what he said, in 1 Corinthians 1:10 through 17, but in the above passage he put another spin on church splits.  Basically, he recognized that there would be divisions in the church but that these divisions would prove who was of God and who was not of God.  This is very similar to what John said here.  Both John and Paul recognized the ever-present tendency for church splits.  Both men would say that the divide would show who was of God and who was not of God; who were real Christians and who were false Christians; who were real members of the church and who were not.      

 

John was saying, in this verse, that these heretics were in fact antichrists.  They were not "the antichrist", but they possessed the spirit of antichrist.  So they were not just heretics.  They were more than heretics.  They were, at least by John's thinking, replacing the real Jesus with themselves.  I say this because of the linguistic and first-century, religious meaning of the word "antichrist." 

 

John said that these heretical antichrists never belonged to the real church in the first place.  They were never real Christians.  If they had been real Christians, who were fitted into the church, they would not have left their brothers and sisters in Christ.  This goes back to the word "fellowship," in chapter 1, verse 6, that we noted previously.  These antichrist heretics claimed to have fellowship with God but didn't, because they walked in darkened sin.  Then, in 1 John 1:7, John said that if these people actually did live in the light of God, they would have fellowship with their Christian brothers and sisters.  They would not have left the fellowship, the Body of Christ, as John said that they did, here in verse 19. 

 

What John said here proves what I have said for years.  Not all who consider themselves as part of the church are actually part of the church.  Not all that attend a meeting of the church on a Sunday morning are members of the church.  Not all who call themselves Christians are Christians.  In today's ecclesiastical world, you could say that the wheat is growing alongside of the weeds. 

 

Verse 20

 

"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."

 

Verse 20 begins with "you have an anointing from the Holy One."  The word "anointing" in Biblical terms is when something, for example oil, is poured over someone for a specific reason.  An example of this is seen on the occasion when Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit when He was baptized in water.  The Holy Spirit came upon Him in a visible form for all to see.  It is not that Jesus did not have the Holy Spirit in His life, because He did.  In fact, He and the Spirit are one.  The New Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as the "Spirit of Jesus" (Acts 16:7 and Philippians 1:19) and as the "Spirit of Christ." (Romans 8:9 and 1 Peter 1:11).  The fact of the matter is that there is more to the Holy Spirit than one person, even Jesus, can contain.  The Spirit of God came on Jesus, or anointed Him, as the long-awaited Messiah of God, and since He was that Messiah, He would now begin His messianic mission.

 

The one hundred and twenty disciples of Jesus, seen in Acts 2, were also anointed with the Holy Spirit.  They were anointed with the Holy Spirit for the same reason Jesus was, and that was so they could carry out the mission that Jesus had begun.  Acts 1:8 says it this way.

 

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem , in all Judea and Samaria , and to the end of the earth."

 

Like the one hundred and twenty on the Day of Pentecost, John's readers had been anointed with the Holy Spirit as well.  I understand that to mean that they had received the Holy Spirit into their lives at some point prior to John writing this letter. 

 

The last part of verse 20 says that "all of you know the truth."  The verb "know" is yet another perfect-tense Greek verb, meaning that at one specific time in the past these believers began knowing the truth and they still knew it as John was writing these words.  Of course, as John 14:6 states, Jesus is the ultimate truth.  If you know Jesus, you obviously know the truth, something the antichrist heretics knew nothing about. 

 

Verse 21

 

"I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth."  

 

Verse 21 says volumes about John's readers.  They knew the truth.  John was not writing to them because they had to be convinced of what was true.  This letter was a simple re-affirmation of what they already knew, but in the midst of all of the heretical teaching and confusion, they needed the truth re-affirmed to them.

 

If you recall my thoughts on the word "we," that was used back in 1 John 1:6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, this verse clearly states that even though the word "we" referred to John and his Christian readers, John was not implying that they believed the false claims promoted by the heretics, that he addressed, back in chapter one.    

 

The phrase "no lie comes from the truth" directly contrasts John’s readers with the heretics who John was calling liars throughout this letter.  John's readers were not liars, because they lived in the light of God's truth and love.    

 

Verse 22

 

"Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son." 

 

Verse 22 tells us that the one "who denies that Jesus is the Christ" is a liar.  The words "one who denies" is a present Greek participle.  This puts the emphasis on a lifestyle of denying.  It is not simply that one makes statements of denial.  Those ones are liars, or deniers, by their very nature. 

 

The liars live a life of denying that Jesus was in fact the Christ, the Messiah, sent by God to offer salvation to all who receive it. 

 

The Greek word "christos" is translated into English as "Christ."  The word means "the anointed one."  Again, Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit to accomplish God's messianic mission while He lived on this planet, and He was so anointed when the Holy Spirit was poured out on him when John the Baptist baptized Him in water. 

 

John then said that this denier is an antichrist because he denies both the Father and the Son.  This speaks about the unity of the Father and Son yet also speaks about the diversity of the Father and the Son.  The Father and the Son are both one yet also distinctly different.  This also speaks about the fact that the denier does not believe that Jesus, when on earth, was God in a human body.  The heretics in John's day did not believe in the Deity of Christ.  They believed in a different Jesus, who was not the Jesus whom John proclaimed.  

     

Verse 23

 

"No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well."

 

Here John said that the "one who denies," and once again it is a present participle that means that it is the one who is a denier at the core of who he is, does not have the Father.  Back in chapter 1, verse 6, the first false claim made by the heretics that John addressed stated that one could live in darkened sin but still have fellowship, or share his life, with God the Father.  Knowing that God is light and in Him there is no darkness of sin (1 John 1:5), such a claim is illogical.  John re-affirmed to his readers that such a denier does not have the Father in his life.  Remember, back in 1 John 1:3 John said that a true believer actually has fellowship, the sharing of his life, with both God the Father and Jesus the Son.

 

John then said that the "one who confesses" that Jesus is the Christ has the Father.  This phrase is also a present participle.  This puts the emphasis on a lifestyle of confessing, or of agreeing with God on all things, as the Greek word translated as "confess" means.  So once again, as John said, in chapter 1, verse 3, the true Christian has within Him both the Father and the Son.  This is possible because of the Holy Spirit who lives within the true believer. 

 

As we have seen throughout John's letter, we see again here.  There is a unity between Father and Son and Spirit, each having His own distinctive personhood.  In theological terms, this has been called the Trinity.   

 

 

Review      

 

John said that the one who lives a life of denying that Jesus is in fact the Christ, the Holy One sent by God to offer salvation to all, is an antichrist.  He is not the antichrist that will appear at the end of the age, but he is an antichrist, one with the spirit of antichrist within him.  Such a denier is not a Christian. 

 

In contrast, the true Christian is one who lives, by his very new nature in Christ, a life of confessing, or agreeing with God, that Jesus is in fact the Christ.  He realizes that present-day antichrists are forerunners of the end-time antichrist who is yet to come onto the world scene.  He, the true Christian, realizes that he is a true Christian because he has the anointing of the Holy Spirit in his life.  The Christians in John's day had no need to be taught by men like the heretics who were out to deceive the true Christian.  

 

John, like Paul, admitted to there being church splits, although both men did not like these splits.  The only positive that could come from a church split, according to both men, was that the split would clearly show who the true members of the Body of Christ were, those who were true Christians, and who were approved by God, which would have been validated with the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the true believer.    

Present-day Implications

 

The characteristic of a true Christian that is seen in this passage is that he lives a life of agreeing with God on all things, because that is what the word "confess" means.  If that is you, then you are a true believer.  This is the truth that John affirmed to his readers, in this section.

 

You may struggle at times with agreeing with God in all things, but at the core of who you are as a new creation in Christ, it is your desire to be in full accordance with God's thinking on all things. 

 

Another character quality of a true Christian that is seen here in this passage is that he knows he is a vital member of the Body of Christ and he would do nothing to cause division.  His heart's desire is to stay in what I call functional fellowship with those to whom Jesus has placed him in the Body of Christ.  In other words, he is not a Christian that floats from one congregation to another in order to meet his personal needs.  He wants to serve with those he is related to in Christ.        

 

We should know that at some point in the future, there will be a world leader who the New Testament predicts will deceive many of those living in the known world.  John called this man the antichrist.  Paul called him the lawless one and the man of sin.  He has been given a number of names in the Bible.  Some Bible teachers suggest there might be thirty three names that can be found in the Bible concerning the antichrist.  Until the day comes when this man of sin attempts to deceive the nations, we should know that our culture has many in it who have the spirit of antichrist.  As a matter of fact, I believe our western-world culture is antichrist at its very core.  For this reason we should be very careful how we associate with such an antichrist culture. 

 

What I see happening in the United States and Canada as I write this commentary in 2019 is that many Evangelical Christians are attempting to convert this antichrist culture to a Christian culture through political and social means.  That has never worked in times past and it will not work now.

 

I was once involved in what was the Conservative Christian Right Movement in the United States back in the 1980's.  Back then I believed that Christians could Christianize culture through political means.  I believed that Christians could bring America back to its Biblical roots.  I no longer believe that.  First of all, I question that America was as Christian at its formation as Christians would like to think.  At its conception, America had many national sins, and most of its founders were not born-again believers.  Secondly, Jesus did not die on the cross to Christianize a country.  He died on the cross to Christianize citizens in a country.  There is a big difference between the two ideas.  Besides that, the Bible continually states the view that all nations and civilizations are opposed to God to one degree or another.  To think your nation is godly is, in my opinion, not Biblical. 

 

Your nation may well have been influenced by Christian values and Biblical thought, but that does not mean it was, or still is, Christian.  As far as western nations go today, there is less Christian influence than there ever was in the past.  The call to the church is not to Christianize your nation through government legislation, but to lead individual citizens in your nation to Jesus. 

 

The way to influence any culture is to lead those in that culture to Christ.  I am not saying that a Christian cannot be involved in politics or any other cultural activity.  Our lights as Christians should shine in all aspects of culture.  When it comes to political involvement for those of us living in a democracy, as citizens of the democratic state, we have the right to run for political office, and so we should, if that is what we feel we should do.  However, we do need to understand that our first calling as a Christian is to lead people to Jesus.    

 

One of my favourite Bible teachers in the 1980's was Ern Baxter.  He said something that I have never forgotten concerning Pat Robertson's (founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network) run for the presidency of the Unite States in 1988.  He told me that if Robertson ever became President of the United States , he must realize that he demoted himself from being a preacher of the gospel to being President of the most powerful nation on earth.  That statement spoke volumes to me back then and began to change my thinking concerning how Christians Christianize their nation.      

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 10

(1 John 2:24 - 29)

 

The Text

 

24 - What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you.  If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father.  25 And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.  26 I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.  27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain in him.  28 So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.  29 If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

 

 

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 24

 

"What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you.  If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father." 

 

Verse 24 begins with the words "what you have heard from the beginning."   These words should remind you of John's opening statement, found back in chapter 1.  What these believers heard in the beginning days was the gospel message that included knowledge of the real Jesus whom the heretics rejected.  To be more precise, in 1 John 1:5, John said that the message these believers first heard was that "God is light and in Him is no darkness."      

 

The words "remain" and "remains" in this verse are present-tense verbs.  This fact has caused much debate over the years.  The debate is over whether a Christian can lose his salvation.  Those who believe a Christian can get unsaved use this verse, along with other verses, in their defence.  They say the word "if" is the key in the debate.  If a Christian remains in Jesus, or, remains in the truth of the gospel, then, and only then, will he remain in the Father and the Son.  If the believer, however, fails to remain in the truth of the gospel then he no longer remains in the Father and the Son, and thus loses his salvation. 

 

The Greek word "meno" is translated as "remain" in this verse.  It simply means "to live."  The one thing we can know for sure about this verse is that the truth of the gospel must "live" (present tense) in the believer.  If the truth of Jesus lives in the person then there will be some visible effect seen in the life of that person.  The word "live" suggests that the truth is not lying dormant.  It is alive and working effectively as it should be, in the believer.  This should be evident in all Christians today.   

 

Those who believe in Eternal Security, a belief that one cannot lose his salvation, say that this verse simply means that the believers who do not allow the truth to be a living force in their lives just lose the fellowship with God the Father and Jesus the Son.  They do not lose their salvation. 

 

Personally speaking, I do not believe in Eternal Security although I am as close to believing in it as one can be without whole-heartedly accepting the doctrine.  There are sufficient Scriptures that suggest one can lose his salvation, and this may or may not be one.  On the other hand, there are many Scriptures that suggest that one cannot lose his salvation.  As far as I am concerned, at least to date, I do not feel anyone really has the full truth on this matter.  That being said, many so-called believers who fall away from Jesus have not lost their salvation because they were never saved in the first place.  One cannot lose his salvation if he has never had salvation to lose.  What we call “church” today is filled with people who claim to be Christian and who are not.  They have not repented of their sinful life.  They have simply given mental assent to Biblical truth, an assent which saves no one.  They have not handed their lives over to Jesus in faith.  They have not received into their being the Holy Spirit that is the authoritative seal, or proof, of their salvation.  Paul speaks about this in Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30. 

 

If you take time to read the book of Hebrews you will note that both sides of this doctrine can be supported.  Here are just two passages to consider.  Hebrews 6:4 through 6 suggests, to some, that one can lose his salvation.  The text reads:

 

"For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away.  This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt."

 

Hebrews 10:14 seems to suggest one cannot lose his salvation.  That verse reads:  

 

"For by one offering he [Jesus] has perfected forever those who are sanctified."

 

I understand that those holding strongly to one side of the doctrinal issue or the other side have their reasons why both of the above passages agree with their thinking.  However, many of those arguments fall short of sound logic.  

 

Something else to consider is this.  Our English word "remains" might be somewhat problematic, depending on how you understand its meaning. 

The word "remains" suggest that the message of the gospel can leave a person.  It also suggests, then that one can leave the Father and the Son.  That would suggest one can lose one's salvation. 

 

The more basic meaning to the Greek word "meno" means "to live," or, "to dwell."  This might portray a different meaning of this verse, to some.  Here is the verse using the word "live" instead of "remains."

 

"What you have heard from the beginning is to live in you.  If what you have heard from the beginning lives in you, then you will live in the Son and in the Father." 

 

The emphasis in this translation is on the message being alive within a person, not remaining in the person with the possibility of leaving that person.  The living message in a person, thus, causes that person to live in both the Father and the Son.  The idea of leaving is not so clearly seen in the above translation.   

 

Verse 25

 

"And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life."

 

Verse 25 states that "He Himself" has promised us "eternal life."  The words "He Himself" that John used a few times in his letter put the emphasis on Jesus.  It is Jesus, and Jesus alone, who has promised us eternal life.  The heretics cannot make this promise. 

 

The eternal life that John wrote about is living throughout eternity in the presence of God.  Eternal life is the positive side, because, there is a negative side as well.  It is eternal death.  Those whose names are not found written in the Lamb's Book of Life will spend eternity in what the Book of Revelation calls the “ Lake of Fire .” 

 

The Greek word "epaggelia" is translated here as "promised."  In the first century Greco-Roman world this was a legal term.  It was a legal promise to do something or to give someone something.  Why John might use this legal term may be debatable.  Those who believe in Eternal Security would use this word in their defence.  That is to say, a legal promise is a legal promise that cannot be broken or revoked.  This would mean that once God granted salvation to someone, He would not take it away.    

 

Verse 26

 

"I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you."  

 

John specifically states, in verse 26, why he was writing this letter.  If they have not already guessed, he specifically said that he was writing to them because of the heretics who were attempting to draw them away from the truth.  John could no longer leave this issue on the sidelines.  The heretics had to be exposed for the antichrists they were.  Their heresies had to be confronted and condemned as lies.         

 

 

 

 

Verse 27

 

"As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain in him."

 

John told his readers that "the anointing" they received still remained, or lived, in them.  This was a re-affirmation that these people still had the Holy Spirit living within them.  They had not lost Him (the Holy Spirit) who is the heavenly seal of approval stating that they were valid believers.  These people received the Spirit of God into their lives and they did so by means of an anointing, an outpouring, as seen in Acts 2 and elsewhere in the book of Acts.

 

Over the years verse 27 has often been misused and abused.  Many have said that they do not need any Christian teacher to teach them anything.  They claim that the Holy Spirit teaches them all things and, thus, they have no need for a human teacher. More often than not, those believing such a thing are usually off-base in almost all they believe.  They are hypocritical because they teach others their false doctrine, and that act of teaching goes against their very claim that a Christian does not need a human teacher.

 

Verse 27 must be taken in the context of what John is saying in his letter.  John is telling his readers that the anointing, the Holy Spirit who remains in them, tells them that the heresies being promoted among them is a lie.  No human teacher needs to tell them that. 

 

The ministry of teaching is seen throughout the New Testament.  It is one of the four-fold ministries of Christ, as seen in Ephesians 4:11.

That verse reads:

 

"And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers."

 

Paul's letters were instructive.  John, in this very letter, was instructing his readers.  If John did not believe in human teachers we would have none of his writings because he would not have written anything.         

             

The words "is not a lie," in reference to the anointing of the Holy Spirit within a person, are in direct contrast to the heretics and their heresies that John has been calling liars and their lies throughout his letter.  The heretics lie.  The Holy Spirit cannot lie.      

 

John ends this thought by saying, "remain in Him."  Again the word "remain" might suggest that one can depart from the Holy Spirit's anointing.  If, however, you view this statement to say, "live in Him," that might well present a different picture of what John meant.  Maybe I am making too much out of this but I think the words "live" or "lives" put a more positive spin on what John said.  The words "remain" or "remains" put a negative spin on what John said.    

 

Verse 28

 

"So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming"
 

John has been admonishing his readers to remain, or live, in God.  He now states another reason for this admonition.  Some day, all believers will stand before Jesus and give account of what they have done or have not done in the service of the Lord.  This is not the White Throne Judgment, as seen in Revelation 20:11 and following, where sinners are judged and sent to the Lake of Fire .  This is, on the other hand, the Judgment Seat of Christ, where the Christian's good works will be judged by Jesus.  This has nothing to do with our salvation.  These goods works do not save us, but, they will be rewarded, if done out of right motives.  Any good work done from wrong motivation will be burned in the presence of Jesus.  We learn about this from what Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 3:10 to 15.  The text reads: 

 

"According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it.  But each one is to be careful how he builds on it.  For no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid down.  That foundation is Jesus Christ.  If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious.  For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work.  If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved — but only as through fire."

 

The words "that day," in the above passage, are in reference to the "Day of the Lord" when all true believers will meet Jesus face to face.  It is that day when our works, not us, are judged.  

 

Understanding what Paul wrote, as John would have understood it, John was saying that he did not want himself or his readers to be ashamed of themselves or their good works on the day they will stand before Jesus. 

 

One thing John was saying, then, is that the way we live in the present should be influenced by the fact that we will all have to stand before Jesus at some future date and give account of ourselves.  This accounting is not a matter of our salvation.  We are already saved.  It is a matter of what we have done for Jesus in this life. 

 

Verse 29

 

"If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him."

 

Verse 29 states yet another characteristic of a true Christian.  "Everyone who does right as been born of Him."  The words "born of Him" should remind us of Jesus telling Nicodemus, in John 3:3 through 5, that a person must be "born again."  Being born again takes place when the Holy Spirit comes to live within a person.  At that moment of time, the person becomes a brand new creation, a new creation that Paul wrote about, in 2 Corinthians 5:17.  Being a brand new creation means that one is no longer what he once was.  This is the meaning of who a true Christian is.  One who has been born of the Spirit will, as John said here, exhibit a life of righteousness.  That does not mean he or she will act perfectly right, as God defines perfectly right, all of the time.  It does mean that the desire to be perfectly right will be clearly seen in his or her life, and to one degree or another will be lived out in his or her life on a daily basis.             

 

 

Review

 

John re-affirmed to his readers that all of what they heard in the beginning days, when the gospel of Jesus was preached to them, must be alive and working in their lives.  It was this truth that should alert them to the false claims the heretics were afflicting them with.  The presence of the truth and the Holy Spirit in the lives of true Christians is sufficient for them to discern what is true teaching and what is false teaching. 

 

If the believers to whom John was writing lived in the truth, they would not be ashamed of themselves when they will stand before Jesus to give an account of what they have done in service to their Lord.   

 

 

 

Present-day Implications 

 

The characteristic of a true Christian that is seen in this section of John's letter is having the ability to discern false doctrine.  If the truth of God is living in you as it should be, you should know what is true and what is false.  Our problem is that the truth of the Word of God may be in our minds, but it has not been allowed to sink into our hearts where we form our convictions of life.  The truth, then, is not alive and working in our lives.  If this is the case for us, which it is in the lives of many who call themselves Christians, then, we cannot discern the difference between true and false doctrine.

The truth of God must be alive and working in our lives.  If it is, then, both God the Father and Jesus His Son remain in us and us in them.  I admit that the word "remain" is open to debate.  Whatever side of the debate you are on, the important thing is that the truth of the gospel of Jesus must not lie dormant in your life.  It must be alive.  It must be working effectively to produce the life of Jesus in your life.   

 

There is another thing that I believe is missing in the lives of many Christians these days.  Many people who claim to be Christians do not think or live in terms of doing the works of a Christian, works that we must give account of before Jesus some day.  We, therefore, must think seriously about the way we serve Jesus today because what we do or not do for Jesus today has real future implications.  We are not called to be, what I call, "Christian couch potatoes" who sit around doing nothing for the Lord.  We are called to do the work of Christians, works that Jesus has mandated us to do.  This is clearly seen, in Ephesians 2:8 through 10.  The text reads:    

    

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift  ​— ​ not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do."

 

According to Paul, Christians are to be busy doing good works, good works that God, even before we were born, has prepared for us to do.

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 11

(1 John 3:1 - 6)

 

The Text

 

1 - See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children — and we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him.  Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.  We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. 3And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.  Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.  You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him.  Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him. 

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 1

 

"See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children — and we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him." 

In verse 1, we note the "great love the Father has given us."  The word "love," in this verse, speaks about sacrificial love.  It is translated from the Greek word "agape," a word that first-century Christians adopted to express God's sacrificial love directed towards mankind.  Anyone who understands, even just a little bit, how God views sin and humanity's sinfulness, understands, just a little bit, how great God's love is.  Jeremiah 17:9 gives us a brief picture of how God views sin in our lives.  It says:   

"The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable  ​— ​ who can understand it?"

Understanding how God views sin makes it difficult for us to comprehend that He actually entered the world of sinful humanity in order to be punished with death on our behalf.  This has resulted in us being seen as God's sons and daughters in His eyes.  As children of God we have been declared righteous, just as God Himself is righteous.  I call that unbelievable love.  This has been called the doctrine of Justification, a Biblical teaching that must be burned into the hearts of all true believers.  

 

John then added the words "and we are" to emphasize that fact that God has indeed lavished great love onto us.  The words "and we are" are meant to re-affirm to John's Christian readers that they were indeed God's children, despite all of the confusion and division caused by the heretics and their followers.

 

Verse 2

 

"Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.  We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is."

 

The words "dear friends," in verse 2, are translated from the Greek word "agapetos."  This word comes from the Greek word "agape," which John used throughout his letter.  Once again, "agape" expresses sacrificial love.  Because "agape" means "sacrificial love" I believe the words "dear friends" are a weak translation, in the CSB.  Some versions of the Bible translate "agapetos" as "dearly beloved."  I prefer "dearly beloved," even though it might be an outdated term, because it better reflects the Greek text that promotes friendship based the friends sacrificing themselves for each other.      

 

John went on to tell his readers that right then, in their present time, they were children of God.  It was not that they would be children of God at some future date.  When they received the Holy Spirit into their lives they were spiritually born into the family of God, with God as the family's Father.  If one does not have the Spirit of God - the life blood of the family - in his life, then that one is not part of God's family.  He is not a child of God.  Romans 8:9 makes that clear.  It reads:

 

"If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him."

 

If one does not belong to God, then one cannot be considered a child of God.  He cannot be a true Christian.  It is that simple. 

 

John told us here that despite who we are as Christians right now, we will not always be who we presently are.  When we see Jesus, and I believe that will be at His second coming to earth, we will be like Jesus.  What Jesus looks like right now, or, what kind of appearance He has, may be debatable.  The general consensus is that He has what Christians have called a glorified human body, the body that many believe He had after He rose from the dead and before He returned to His Father in heaven.  Whether Jesus' post resurrection body is the body He has now may be debatable as well.  One thing I believe, and that I am sure of, is that Jesus has some kind of recognizable form and whatever that form is, will be our form in the future. 

 

What John said, in this section of his letter, Paul also said in his own way, in Romans 8:29, when he wrote that Jesus is "the firstborn from among the dead."  Jesus was the first one born into this new eternal creation.  The believers are the second, third, fourth, and so on, born from among the dead.  Romans 8:29 says this:

 

"For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."

 

How will we actually become like Jesus?  John said that it is because "we will see Him as He is."  It appears to me, then, that just seeing Jesus in person will transform us into His likeness.  I cannot begin to imagine what it will be like to be in the very presence of Jesus, and to be immediately transformed into something I have never been.  It is beyond human reasoning.  Paul said something similar, in 1 Corinthians 2:9.

"But as it is written, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived  —  God has prepared these things for those who love him."

Verse 3

 

"And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure." 

 

Note the word "hope," in verse 3.  It is my opinion that an emphasis on faith overshadows proper teaching on hope in much of Christian theology.  The word "hope" has a specific Biblical meaning, and it has nothing to do with doubt or uncertainty.  If you understand hope in terms of how our western culture views hope, that is, I hope to win the lottery, you have misunderstood Biblical hope.  Hoping to win the lottery is not a certainty.  It is more doubtful than anything else.  Biblical hope, on the other hand, is a certain expectation of a future reality that is not yet a present reality.  In this sense of the word, Biblical hope is closer to Biblical faith than many realize.  Biblical hope does not express doubt, as our culture's understanding of hope does.   

 

The hope of a future reality that John wrote about, here, was the expectation of the return of Jesus to earth when the Christian will be transformed into the very likeness and image of Jesus.  It is my thinking that what we will look like is really unknown.  We may speculate all we want, but our ideas and speculations may not be the reality when that day comes. 

 

John said that "everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself."  This clearly puts some responsibility on the Christian.  As Christians we have responsibilities.  One of these responsibilities is to purify, or clean ourselves from our sinfulness.  We have already seen, in 1 John 1:8, that the blood of Jesus cleans the stain that sin leaves in our lives.  Here we see that part of our job is to clean the actual sin out of our lives.  In theological terms this is part of the process that is called "sanctification," which means that as we become more dedicated to Jesus, we will not sin as much as we once did.  Of course, we have help in the process of sanctifying ourselves.  The Holy Spirit, in connection with His Word written in the Bible, assists us in cleaning up the sin from our lives. 

 

The knowledge that as Christians we have certain responsibilities is lost, in my opinion, on many Christians these days.  I admit, in Evangelical Church circles in past decades the cleaning up of sin was very much a humanistic process, disengaged from the Holy Spirit's help.  We do need to purify ourselves as John said, but we must not do it in our own human strength.  As a matter of fact, you cannot fully purify yourself from sin on your own.  You need the help of the Spirit of God.  The legalism of past decades does not fully sanctify a person.  The apostle Paul spoke of this very issue, in Galatians 3.  Galatians 3:2 and 3 say this:

 

"I only want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?"

 

I like how the NIV version of the Bible ends the above passage.  It asks this question.  "Are you now made perfect by human effort?"  The obvious answer to this question is, "no."  Human effort does not complete the work that the Holy Spirit has begun in the life of the believer, and Paul was adamant about that.   

 

Verse 4

 

"Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness"

 

John said that "everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness."  The two verb tenses are important here.  The words "commits sin" in the phrase "everyone who commits sin" are a present participle.  This puts the emphasis on the fact of the one sinning as being a sinner, not just one who sins from time to time.  He is in fact, by virtue of his human nature, is a full-time sinner. 

 

The words "practices lawlessness" is a present indicative verb.  This means that the full-time sinner is certain to commit acts of sin in present time.  What else can he really do?  John is not writing about the Christian here.  He is writing about the heretics and those who are following their lead.  By their very nature, they are committers of sin.  

 

Note the word "lawlessness" in this verse.  This is yet another one of a number of verses in the New Testament that defines sin, definitions which the heretics in John's day rejected.  According to this verse, sin means disobedience to law, whether God's law, man's law, church law, or, I might add, natural law, as might be seen in the homosexual lifestyle.  The heretics might well have been in compliance with man-made civil laws but they were not in compliance with the New Testament laws of Jesus which, as I have said earlier, are not the six hundred and thirteen laws found in the Law of Moses.

                    

You do not see it in the English text, but in the Greek text the Greek word "ho" which can be translated into English as "the" appears before the word "lawlessness."  For some Bible teachers, this means that John had a particular form of lawlessness in mind, not lawlessness in a general sense.  It is "the" lawlessness.  What that particular lawlessness would have been might be debatable.  Some suggest that this particular lawlessness might be the sin that leads to death that we will see, in 1 John 5:16.  I will talk more about this, in the following verses and when we get to 1 John 5:16.  Whatever the case, formulating a thought on the word "the" alone is dubious Biblical interpretation.   

 

Verse 5        

 

"You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him." 

              

The pronoun "he" in the phrase is in reference to Jesus.  We saw the word "revealed," back in 1 John 1:2, where I said that the revealing of Jesus to the world was when the voice from heaven proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God at His water baptism.  See Luke 3:22.

 

According to John, as stated in verse 5, Jesus was revealed in order for Him "to take away sin."  In context, including the context of the whole letter, "take away sin" might well mean the removal of sin from our lives.  Remember, back in 1 John 2:1, John said that he did not want his readers to sin.  John might well be speaking here of the process of sanctification where the believer, through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, little by little, has sin removed from his life because he is more dedicated to Jesus today than he was yesterday.  Of course, all sin will be removed from the life of the believer when he meets Jesus face-to-face at His return to earth.  Maybe John had that in mind when he penned these words.  At that time, as John said earlier, the believer's life will be changed into the very sinless likeness of the life of Jesus.

 

With a different interpretation, some understand the taking away of sin to mean the removing of sin from the believer's account in the heavenly records rather than from the believer's life.  I cannot discount that interpretation either.  

 

Verse 6     

 

"Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him." 

          

Verses 6 through 10 have caused much debate over the centuries.  What John meant by the words "everyone who remains in him does not sin" confuses many.  In 1 John 2:1, John already admitted that Christians, yes even Christians, do sin.  So what was John saying here?

 

The word "remains" is better understood as "abides," as is written in the King James Bible.  The words "lives" or "dwells" are also good words.  From the Greek text I think the word "remains" as we read in the CSB is weak.  John is saying that the one who lives his life in Jesus, does not sin. 

 

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (born 1703 - died 1791) taught that one could reach a state of sinless perfection, although he also said that few would ever reach that state.  Many of Wesley's followers went beyond Wesley by saying that sinless perfection was attainable for all believers.  They called it Entire Sanctification, and, they used this verse as one of their proof texts.  The Methodist denominations find their roots in John Wesley and his teaching. 

 

When you take this verse in context with 1 John 2:1 and the rest of the New Testament, it is difficult to believe that John was thinking of sinless perfection in this verse.  Some believe that because the words "does not sin" are in the present tense, John had continuous sin in mind.  That is to say, a believer who lives in Jesus does not continually sin as the heretics did.  They may commit sin from time to time but they do not live a lifestyle of sin.  That may be the case but others say it is not.  Those who say it is not say that just because a verb is in the present tense does not always suggest it is a continuous present-time action.  For example, I might say this.  "I am removing the dish from the sink."  This is a limited present-time action.  It is not an ongoing present-time action.  I am not always removing the dish from the sink in present time.              

 

The Greek verb tense of our English word "remains" is a present participle.  This puts the emphasis on one being a full-time abider in Jesus because of his new nature in Christ, not a part-time abider.  This is contrasting the true believer with the false believer that John has been writing about. 

 

John then said that "everyone who sins has not seen him or known him."  The words "who sins" in the Greek text are a present participle.  This puts the emphasis on the fact of the one sinning being a sinner by nature, not one who sins from time to time. 

 

The words "has not seen" is a present tense Greek verb.  This means the sinner does not see Jesus in present time. 

 

The word "known" is a perfect tense Greek verb.  This means that the sinner has never known Jesus in the first place in order to see Him in present time.  For that reason, acts of sin come naturally to him.  He can do nothing else but sin.                 

     

Over the years, verse 6 has been interpreted in many ways.  There are as many interpretations of this verse as there are interpreters.  You might well have your own views on how to understand what John is saying here.    

 

 

Review

 

John distinguished between those who are true children of God and those who are not true children of God.  This distinction is seen in how one loves his brothers and sisters in Christ.  The distinction is also seen in one's relationship to sin in his life. 

 

According to John, the real Christian will purify himself from his sin.  He understands that he, with the help of the Holy Spirit and God's Word, is able to remove sin from his life. 

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

Verse 6 has been debated for centuries.  We may never come to a consensus on what John meant. 

I admit, as many do, that this is a difficult passage to interpret.  It is clear to me, both from experience and from 1 John 2:1 and other such passages, that Christians can and do sin.  As a Christian, this is something to which you must admit.  Once admitting to your sins as a Christian, you must also admit that you are responsible, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the written Word of God found in the Bible, to purify yourself from sin.  This is something that is often overlooked in the life of the western-world Christian these days.   In decades past it was not overlooked.  The problem in the past was that purifying one's self from sin was very much a matter of legalism.  It was a matter of obeying what were understood to be the Biblical rules as well as church rules.  Obeying rules, no matter which rules, purifies no one from sin.  We, thus, have gone from one extreme to another when it comes to the concept of sin in the life of a believer.  We have gone from purifying ourselves from sin in a Biblically wrong way to not even considering we need to be purified from sin.

 

The question concerning whether you, as a born-again believer, can commit sin, is a question you may need to think more about.  One thing I know is that true Christians do sin, but they do not live a lifestyle of sin.  I am sure of that.  Sin, therefore, must be dealt with in our lives.  It also cannot be ignored in our preaching from the pulpit, as is often the case these days.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 12

1 John 3:7 - 10

 

The Text

 

7 - Children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.  The one who commits] sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.  The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works.  Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God.  10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.

 

My Commentary

 

 Verse 7

 

"Children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous."

 

John called his readers children, as he has been doing all along.  They are his children in the Lord.  They are not his biological children.  As he stated here, he does not want his children in the Lord to be deceived.  That only makes since.  John has a pastor's heart for these people.  You will recall that, in 1 John 1:8, John said the heretics of his day were deceived, and they were attempting to influence John's children in the Lord.  He certainly did not want his believing readers to be deceived by the deceiving heretics.  

 

The words "does what is right is righteous" are not difficult to figure out.  The words "the one who does" in "the one who does what is right" are a present Greek participle.  Again, John was talking about one being a continual doer of right, by virtue of the fact that he is a new creation in Christ.  He continues to do right because a doer of right is who he is.  He is not one who only does right occasionally.  One who lives a life of righteousness is righteous.  That is easy to understand.  The next phrase may not be as easy to understand.  

The words "just as he is righteous" tell us that the habitually righteous one is just like God Himself is righteous.  The difficulty comes because the righteous human being, unlike God, does sin, as John stated, in 1 John 2:1.  In this sense of the word, the righteous human is not exactly like the righteous God.  Yes, God has declared the true believer to be righteous, just as He Himself is righteous, but, I do not believe this is what John is talking about here.  This further complicates what these few verses really mean.      

 

Verse 8

 

"The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.  The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works." 

 

The words "the one who commits," in verse 8, are a present Greek participle.  John is talking about the habitual sinner here, not the Christian who sins occasionally.  He habitually sins because he is a sinner by nature.  It is this person who is of, or belongs to, the devil.  The Christian does not belong to the devil.  He belongs to God.  

 

John gives yet another reason why Jesus, the Son of God, was revealed.  This revelation took place at Jesus' water baptism when the voice from heaven confirmed Him to be the Son of God.  See Luke 3:22.  According to John, in this verse of his letter, Jesus was revealed to destroy the works of the devil.  Satan's final destruction is seen, in Revelation 20:7 through 10, when he is thrown into the Lake of Fire for all of eternity. 

 

This question could be asked.  While on earth, or while on the cross, or, at His resurrection, did Jesus destroy the works of the devil?  I believe, as with all of salvation, the work of Jesus is an ongoing process.  The cross of Christ and the resurrection are steps in the process of destroying the works of the devil.  Look at what Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 15:24.  He said this:

 

"Then comes the end, when he [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he [Jesus] abolishes all rule and all authority and power."

 

According to Paul, the devil and his agents will not be utterly destroyed until the future time when Jesus abolishes the devil and his followers.         

 

Verse 9

 

"Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God."

If you thought verse 6 was confusing, verse 9 is even more confusing.  For as many interpreters of this verse there are, there are just as many interpretations. 

 

First of all, I point out the words "born of God."  These words always remind me of, John 3, verses 3 to 5, where Jesus spoke about being born again.  When one is born again, he is born again of the Holy Spirit.  That is to say, when the Holy Spirit comes into a person's life, that person is born again as a new creation in Christ.  He is not the person he once was.  In actuality, he has just undergone a second birth, a spiritual birth, which the non-believer knows nothing about.  Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17 put it this way.

 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!"

 

Note the word "seed" (Greek "sperma"), in 1 John 3:9.  I believe the seed is the Holy Spirit, who enters the life of one in the process of this second birth. 

 

The words "who has been born" is a perfect tense Greek participle.  This means that the true Christian is a "born-again one."  The emphasis is on being one who is born again, not on doing things that born-again people should do. 

John said that the born-again one does not sin.  Here again is a difficult phrase.  Why does the born-again one not sin?  John said that it is because the seed, or Holy Spirit, lives in him.  As a matter of fact, such a person "is not able to sin," according to John.  The verb "not able" is a present tense indicative verb.  The indicative part of this verb means that the born-again one, in all certainty, just does not sin. 

 

Let us see what verse 10 says before we attempt to draw any conclusions from these verses. 

 

Verse 10

 

"This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister."

  

Because the words "does not do" are a Greek present participle, John is saying that the habitual sinner who consistently does wrong is of the devil.  He said that is an obvious conclusion.  It is just a fact.  That is not difficult to understand. 

 

John specified one type of wrong-doing here in this verse, and that is not loving one's brothers or sisters in Christ.  The false believers in John's day left the fellowship of the Christian community, as we saw, in 1 John 2:18 and 19.  I think John was alluding to that here.  They left the Body of Christ, so they cannot be true believers.  They did not just leave one congregation to join another as is common-place today.  They left the church, the Body of Christ, and if you leave the Body of Christ, by implication, you leave Christ. 

 

If you remember, in 1 John 2:18 and 19, John said that these false believers were never real members of the Body of Christ in the first place, so, in the truest sense of the word, these people were never Christians in the first place.  They were never members of the church, so, in that sense of the word, they could never leave the church or Christ.         

 

So how do we understand this section?  On the surface, John seems to have said that a true Christian, who lives his life in Jesus, cannot sin.  How can that be true when, back in 1 John 2:1, he admitted that a true believer can sin?  I am not convinced that we can answer these questions in a way that would satisfy John if he were with us today.  We certainly have to put this section in context with all of what John wrote in this letter, and then, put it in context of the whole Bible.    

 

One of the main interpretations of this passage is that because John has been speaking in the present tense, many say that he was saying that a true Christian cannot continually live a lifestyle of sin, and that may be the correct view.  However, there is a problem with this view.  Just because something is in the present tense does not mean it is a continuous present action, as in the example I gave earlier. If I say; "I am taking the dish out of the sink," that is a limited-time present-tense action.  I am not continually taking the dish out of the sink. 

 

Another interesting view is that because of the Greek word "ho" ("the" in English) that is used in a few places in this section in reference to sin and lawlessness, John had a specific sin in mind.  He was not thinking of sin in general.  In other words, Christians cannot commit "the sin," whatever "the sin" is.  In 1 John 5:16, John said that there is a sin that leads to death.  This might well be "the sin" he had in mind here.  John does not say what "the sin" is.  That would be left to us to figure out. 

 

 

Review

 

One thing we learn for sure in this passage is this.  One who habitually lives a lifestyle of sin is of the devil.  One who by his new nature in Christ and who lives a life of righteousness is of God. 

 

Another thing we learn for sure from this section in 1 John is that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.  Satan's works, as of now, have not been completely destroyed and they will not be completely destroyed until the day he is thrown into the Lake of Fire , as seen in Revelation 20:10.  That verse reads:

 

"The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

 

Earlier in this commentary I pointed out that salvation, in terms of the individual, and also, in the broadest sense of the word, is viewed in three verb tenses throughout the Bible. That is to say, we were saved.  We are being saved.  We will be saved.  This view of progressive salvation includes the destruction of Satan as well.  That is to say, Satan has been defeated.  He is being defeated.  He will be defeated.    

 

Concerning John's statement that one born of the Spirit cannot sin, we have many debatable answers.  At the moment, and I might change my mind, I view this as one who is born of God does not live a lifestyle of habitual sin. 

 

   

Present-day implications     

 

If you are one who, although sins at times, lives a life of righteousness, you can know for sure that you are a true Christian.  That is the character trait of a real Christian seen in this section of 1 John.  In contrast to your righteous lifestyle, those who live a life of sin are not a part of God's family.  That is just a factual matter, and as John does, there is nothing wrong with judging such a person to be a fake Christian. 

 

John said that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.  We should note that it is Jesus, not us, who will ultimately destroy the works of Satan and Satan himself.  Many Christians believe they can bind Satan and destroy his works by their positive confession of faith, and by their commands to send him to hell.  I question that thinking and practice.  The devil will be with us until the day comes when he is thrown into the Lake of Fire .  Until then, he and the demonic world with him, are a force to be reckoned with. 

 

If you read Ephesian 6:10 through 18 you will note what Paul said about our fight with the devil and his allies.  Nowhere does he say that we will defeat the devil for good.  He said that we must put on the full armour of God just to be able "to stand" against his attacks.  Jesus, not us, will eventually destroy the works of Satan.  If you read Ephesians 6 closely, you will note that our fight against the satanic forces is defensive in nature.  It is not offensive in nature, something many Christians do not understand.      

 

 

 

 

Lesson 13

1 John 3:11 - 20

 

The Text 

 

11 - For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another,  12 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.  And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.  13 Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.  14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters.  The one who does not love remains in death.  15 Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.  16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us.  We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him — how does God’s love reside in him?  18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.   19 This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him   20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 11

 

"For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another," 

 

John spoke of "the message" these people had heard "from the beginning."  As I pointed out in my comment, on 1 John 1:5, our English word "message" is translated from the Greek word "aggellia," which implies that the message must be spoken in order to be a valid message.  It is what the apostle Paul wrote about, in Romans 10:14.  He wrote this:

 

"How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in?  And how can they believe without hearing about him?  And how can they hear without a preacher?"

 

The fact of the matter is that if the message of the gospel is not verbalized, it has no effect.  It must be spoken in order to be accepted, believed, and implemented into one's life.  John's readers did hear the message in times past.  As John said, they heard it in the beginning days when John and others proclaimed the message of the gospel to them. 

 

Part of the gospel message that John and others preached was that the new believers in Jesus should "love one another."  The love that Jesus lavished on His followers is the love, the agape love, sacrificial love, that they should lavish on one another.  This would make Jesus' statement come true in the Christian community in which John's readers lived.  Jesus spoke of this corporate expression of love.  John 13:35 says this:

 

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

 

Without this love being visibly displayed among those in the community of believers, the message of the gospel will not be clearly heard nor seen by those to whom we speak it.  It is for this reason that much of the church's effectiveness to win people to Jesus has been impaired.  Those in the church have not demonstrated this sacrificial love to each other in order for the culture around them to see.  It has hurt the church's responsibility as Jesus’ representative to its surrounding culture.  

 

Verse 12

 

"... unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.  And why did he murder him?  Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous."

 

John compared those who do not love one another with Cain.  We have already noted that the ones who did not love one another in John's day were the heretics who claimed to have this love.  1 John 2:18 and 19 tell us that they left the church, demonstrating their lack of genuine love.  John did go on to say that these false believers left the church because, in fact, they were not true Christians in the first place.  They were not true members of the Body of Christ.  Simply attending meetings does not mean that one is a part of the Body of Christ.  Simply having some kind of fellowship, but not the Biblical fellowship of sharing one's life with others, makes no one a true member of the Body of Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit who lives in the believer who makes the believer a member of the true church, as Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 12:13.

      

"For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body  —  ​whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free  ​—  ​and we were all given one Spirit to drink."

 

The word "baptized" in Paul's statement means "immersed."  Paul was not writing about water baptism.  He was writing about being immersed into the Body of Christ, or as I say it, "being immersed into the lives of those to whom Jesus has joined you in the Body of Christ."   

 

John's comment in some respects is a commentary on the life of Cain.  According to John, Cain was of the "evil one."  The evil one is in reference to Satan.   Did Cain actually realize that he followed Satan's lead?  Could you say that he was an adherent of the devil?  That is difficult to know for sure, but it is an interesting thought to consider, even though we may not have enough information to make a valid conclusion.  Whether he knew he was following the devil or not, he was acting devilish.     

 

If Cain was inherently evil then all he did would have been evil, which is seen in the killing of his brother.  This makes it clear to me that even in this very early stage of history, and just how early in history it was is questionable, evil was well entrenched in the human condition.   

 

John said the reason for this murder was because Cain's works were evil and Abel's were good.  This suggests that all that Cain did was motivated by evil and seeing his brother's good works would have irritated him immensely.  This might suggest that at the very core of who Cain was, he was evil.   

 

Verse 13

 

"Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you."

 

Note, here, that John was calling his readers "brothers and sisters."  This tells us that he is definitely writing to Christians.  We should also note, as I have noted before, that there is no corresponding Greek word for our English word "sisters" in the original Greek text.  The CSB version of the Bible is a gender-neutral Bible.  For this reason the word "sisters" is inserted into the English translation to make the point that John had both men and women in mind when he penned this letter.

 

John wanted his readers to remember, and I am sure they already knew this, that the world, or their surrounding culture, would hate them.  This is something that Jesus told John and his associates some sixty or more years earlier.  John 15:18 and 19 say this:

 

"If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.  However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you."

     

The true Christian belongs to Jesus and His Kingdom, not to the kingdoms or the cultures of men.  It is only natural to love your own.  The world loves those who are of the world.  Beyond that, there is a good chance those in the world will hate those who are not of them.

 

Verse 14

 

"We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters.  The one who does not love remains in death."

 

John stated another way in which his readers really knew that they were Christians.  This time he put it in terms of passing from death unto life, and they knew they had made this transition because of their love of their brothers and sisters in the Lord.  As a Christian, you should realize that eternal life for you has already come because the eternal Spirit of God lives within you.  You do not inherit eternal life when you die.  You have it right now.  Earthly death is simply passing from one form of life to another form of life.      

 

The Greek verbs "know" and "have passed" are both Greek perfect verbs.  A perfect verb is a completed action verb that has present day implications.  So, you could say it this way in English.  "You have come to know that you have passed from death to life because you love your brothers and sisters."  It is clear, then, that John's readers love each other, and again, this is sacrificial, agape, love.  This love is proof of real Christian faith in their lives, for such love is hard to come by if you are not a born-again believer.  This is in sharp contrast to the false believers who left the brotherhood of believers.

 

The Greek verb in the phrase "the one who does not love" is yet another Greek present participle, a verb tense that John used a lot in his letter.  This means that the one John is writing about is, by his very nature, a non-lover. Not loving, maybe even hating, is more than doing acts of non-love.  Such a person lives in death.  He does not know what true life is all about because he does not have the Spirit of life within him.   

 

The Bible speaks of those who have not entered the world of eternal life as living in death.  Those people are obviously physically alive, but they are alive without the life-giving Spirit of God.  Those living apart from God's Spirit do not know what real life is all about, and in the end they will live in eternal death, otherwise known as the Lake of Fire .

 

I explain the Lake of Fire this way.  It is a place of death, where people want nothing else but to die, but are unable to die.  They are constantly in the process of painfully dying but yet never do actually die.  That would be an extremely frustrating existence.  Most people when they are sick and in pain and at death's door, want to die.  Just imagine, if you can, living in such a state for all of eternity.

Verse 15

  

"Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him."

 

What John said in this verse is difficult to completely understand.  The Greek verb "hates" is a present participle.  The one John wrote of here, then, was one, who by his very nature was a hater.  He did not just hate from time to time.  That is the nature of the Greek present participle.  It is here that we have a bit of a difficulty.  The verb tense says this person is a hater.  The context suggests that he is a believer because of the phrase "who hates his brother or sister."  John seems to suggest that this hater is a believer because of the use of the words "brother and sister," and, I would suggest that means brother and sister in Christ.   

 

Note the word "murderer" that is applied to the hater.  The word "murder" is translated from the Greek word "anthropoktomos."  This word means "a person killer."  Can a Christian be a hater, and if so, also a murderer, a person killer?  To further complicate the issue, John went on to say that the one who hates is a murderer and "no murderer has eternal life residing in him."  This phrase suggests that the person John had in mind could not have been a believer because if the eternal life, the Spirit of God Himself, does not live in a person, that person cannot be a true believer.  Why would John associate the one who did not have eternal life in him with brothers and sisters in Christ?      

 

The best I can conclude at this moment in time is that the one who by his very nature hates those that "he claims" to be his brothers and sisters in Christ, is not a real Christian.  Perhaps the real Christians even mistakenly consider him a real Christian, but his claim to be part of the brotherhood of believers is a false claim, thus, excluding him from the community of Christ.  It was for this reason that John, back in 1 John 2:18 and 19, said that these haters left the church.  They left, as John said, because they were never true members in the church in the first place.     

 

You might wonder how a hater, or, one who hates, is designated a murderer.  John would have acquired this idea directly from Jesus Himself.  The Old Testament command said not to kill.  Jesus redefined that command, in Matthew 5:21 and 22.  The text reads:

 

"You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.  But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be subject to the court. Whoever says, 'You fool!' will be subject to hellfire."

 

If you understand how Jesus redefined the law not to murder, you can easily see why John equated hating with murder in his letter. 

 

Jesus made a pretty drastic statement concerning anger and murder.  All of us have probably been angry without a valid reason with someone at some point in our lives.  Is that anger murder?  Unless your anger is righteous anger, and there is such a thing as righteous anger, then in your heart you have committed murder, according to Jesus.  If you thought obeying the Ten Commandments was difficult, obeying Jesus' re-interpretations of the Ten Commandments is even more difficult.    

What the Old Testament Law did, or the Torah as Jews knew it, was address the outward actions, like murder.  Jesus redefined these laws by addressing the inward sinful matter of the heart.  If one did not get angry without due cause in his heart, then he would not commit murder.  If one did not lust after someone then one would not commit adultery.  Whereas the Law of Moses addressed outward sins, Jesus addressed the inward sins that caused the outward sins. 

 

Christians are to obey Jesus, not the Law of Moses.  If you think obeying the Law of Moses is difficult, obeying Jesus is impossible.  It is for that reason that God, through the cross of Christ, has declared the believer righteous.  Other than that, obtaining to Jesus' righteous standard by obedience to Him is impossible, even with our best attempts.

 

Verse 16      

                 

"This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us.  We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters."

 

In this verse, John said that "this is how we have come to know love."  John spoke about knowing love in the same way we could know Jesus, or know anyone.  There are two ways to understand the word "know."  We can know about something, or, we can experience what we know.  Knowing about Jesus is not knowing Him experientially.  Knowing about love is not knowing love experientially.  It is this second knowing that John wrote about here.  If love is not lived out in actions, then one does not love.  I will comment more on this, later, as John himself comments on it farther on in his letter.

 

John said that "He laid down his life for us."  The pronoun "He" is in reference to Jesus.  Jesus laid down his life for us.  The verb "laid down" is a Greek aorist verb.  An aorist verb is a one-time past-action verb.  This means that at one specific time in the past Jesus laid down His life for us.  Because this laying down is a one time action, John would have had the cross of Christ in mind when he penned these words.

 

John ends his thought, here, with "we should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters."  The Greek verb tense here for "lay down" is aorist infinitive.  This verb tense is described as a "verbal noun."  That sounds complicated, but it simply means an action that has a goal in mind."  This would mean that the action of sacrificing our lives for another would have its intended goal in the other person who is the beneficiary of our act of love.  This describes what the love of Jesus is all about.  He loved us and His love is meant to find its intended goal in and through our lives.  Love, as they say these days, is all about "paying it forward." 

 

Verse 17

 

"If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him — how does God’s love reside in him?'

 

What John said, here, gets down to the practicalities of sacrificial love.  The Greek word "kosmos" is translated here as "world's" in the phrase "if anyone has this world's goods."   The word "kosmos" is in reference to our surrounding culture.  John obviously understood that some Christians had an abundance of material possessions that were obtained in one way or another from the surrounding culture.  I do not believe John had a problem with people having material possessions.  The Bible does not teach that material possessions are inherently evil, wrong, or sinful.  What John, and the Bible, teach, concerns what we do with that which we possess.  This is John's point here.

 

If anyone sees a brother or sister in need and has the ability to fulfill that need, he or she must do what he or she can to help the brother or sister in need.  This is putting actions to one's words of love.  It is demonstrating the love of Jesus, which should find its intended goal in and through us as believers.  

 

Note the words "withholds compassion" in this verse.  This is not a word-for-word translation of the Greek text.  If it were, our English text would read something like this.  "If anyone shuts up his bowels, how does the love of God dwell in him?"  In much of the culture in which John lived, it was not the heart of man that was the center of emotions.  The bowels were the center of a person's emotion.  A husband today might say this to his wife.  "I love you with all of my heart."  In John's day, at least in parts of the Roman Empire , a husband might say this to his wife.  "I love you with all of my bowels."  That sounds utterly ridiculous to us in our western-world, twenty-first-century culture.  This shows how difficult it is to translate a sentence from a language and culture that has little relevance to our language and culture today.

 

Verse 18

 

"Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth." 

 

Again, as I have been saying throughout this commentary, the words "little children" refer to John's Christian readers because, he, being an old man, viewed his readers as children in the Lord.  They were not his biological children.

 

The message of this verse is that anyone who claims to exhibit real love, and again, it is agape, sacrificial love that John is writing about, must love in both action and truth.  Love in action is easy to understand.  This simply means we must put our words of love into real actions of love, but what does love in truth mean?  That may be more difficult to understand. 

 

I explain "love in truth" this way.  Let us say that your son does something that is obviously wrong.  Love in truth does not hide his sin.  Love in truth does not cover up his sin.  Love in truth does not ignore his sin.  The truth of the situation is that he has sinned and he must be accountable for his sin.  That means you must confront him with his sin in the hope that he will admit to the sin, stop sinning, and if necessary, make amends for his sin.  Truth demands that you expose the sin.  If the sin is not exposed, and if you cover it over, you do not express love to your son.  In fact, you have crossed the line of truth in the process of putting your love into actions.  Love can be tough at times.  Tough love means that you do not ignore sin.

 

If you cross the line of Biblical truth in the process of love, you no longer love.  I believe that is what John was writing about in this verse.  Jesus loved, but He did not love at the expense of truth.  Jesus loved Peter, but when Peter sinned, He let Peter know of his sin.  Jesus did not cross the line of truth by ignoring Peter's denial of Him.  He confronted Peter and prayed that he would recover from his sin with his faith intact.  Luke 22:31 through 34 says this:

 

"'Simon, Simon, look out.  Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.  And you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.'  'Lord,' he [Peter] told him, 'I’m ready to go with you both to prison and to death.'  'I [Jesus] tell you, Peter,' he said, 'the rooster will not crow today until you deny three times that you know me.'"

 

We must not only put our love into action.  We must love in accordance with the truth of God, and as the apostle Paul said, "we must speak the truth, but when we do, we speak it in love."  Ephesians 4:15 says this:

 

"But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head — ​Christ."

      

Verse 19 

 

"This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ..."

 

Note the verb tense in "this is how we will know."  That is the future tense.  "That we belong to the truth" is present tense.  "Will reassure our hearts before him ..." is future tense.  Simply put, if we love in both action and truth in present time, we will know and be assured in the future that our hearts are right before God.  How we love now will determine our assuredness we have in God in the future.  I am far from convinced that Christians today think much about how their present actions play such an important part in their future, whether the future is in this life or the next life.    

 

The word "heart" in this verse is translated from the Greek word "kardia."  It is from this Greek word that we derive our English word "cardiac."  

 

Verse 20 

 

"... whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things."

 

This verse became real to me back in the 1970's.  I was raised in the 1950's and 1960's in the Evangelical Church that was quite legalistic.  The church preached a salvation-by-faith-and-not-by-works message, but, it was my impression, because of the legalistic preaching, that one stayed saved not by faith, but by works.  This left me, and others, in a place that we often wondered if we were really saved.  It left many of us with what I then called guilty feelings.  These feelings morphed into a heart-felt condemnation, which John addressed here.  John had an answer to this condemnation.  He said that your heart may condemn you, but God is greater than your heart.  God knows your heart's desire.  If you desire to live for Him, any feelings associated with guilt or condemnation is not relevant.  

 

The fact of the matter is that guilt is not a feeling.  It is the position in which one stands before God, the judge.  If you have accepted God's declaration of viewing you as righteous, then righteous you are.  The way you feel is irrelevant.  You are righteous in the sight of God because He has declared you righteous.  What He says, goes. 

 

If one stands before a judge and the judge has declared him to be guilty, guilty he is, whether he feels guilty or not.  If the judge declares him innocent, innocent he is, whether he feels innocent or not.  Feelings are irrelevant.  This is what John was getting at in this verse.   

 

Even though I say that feelings are irrelevant, I understand that they have both a positive and negative influence on our lives.  The Holy Spirit and the Word of God can overcome the negative influences of negative emotions.  To the degree, then, you allow this truth to sink into your heart, where it forms the convictions of life whereby you live, will be the degree in which these negative emotions will leave your life.   

 

Concerning the notion of staying saved by works, Paul said this, in Romans 1:17.

 

"For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith."       

 

Paul maintained that the just one does not only get saved by faith; he lives his entire life by faith, or, by trusting his life with Jesus.

 

 Review

              

John said a lot, in this portion of his letter, but the theme of love is what stands out the most.  In the midst of the confusion and disruption the heretics would have brought to John's Christian readers, maintaining sacrificial love in the midst of a church split was not only important, but necessary to the effectiveness of the church.  Emotions might well have been running high among the believers, which would have further complicated matters in the midst of the confusion. 

 

Sacrificial love in the midst of turmoil would have to have been exhibited in both action and truth just to maintain a good measure of unity in the church.  Such love does not come easy to most of us because it is not inherent in whom we are.  By nature, the human condition is unloving, even evil, at its core.  The prophet Jeremiah made that clear centuries ago.  Jeremiah 17:9 says this: 

 

"The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable — who can understand it?"

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

It is a sad commentary on the church, but throughout history the church has not exhibited the sacrificial love that John maintained it should exhibit.  Congregational splits over secondary Biblical issues, personality differences, and personal preferences, show that sacrificial love has been hard to come by.  The fact remains, if we, the church, are to ever be what we have been called to be, we must demonstrate sacrificial love, and in the process, we cannot deny the truth of Scripture.

 

John was speaking about love in the Christian community.  The separation that took place in the community which John addressed was over primary elements of the gospel, over who Jesus was and what constituted sin.  In the process of love, John would not compromise on such primary issues of the gospel.  He would stand on the side of truth, and as we say today, "let the chips fall where they may."  If that caused a split, then so be it.  One must love, but one cannot compromise or ignore the truth in an attempt to love.  

 

The fact that John pointed out that there were those who claimed to be part of the church but were in fact by their very nature hating murderers tells me that not all who claim to be part of the church are valid members of the true church.  I conclude, then, that in today's church, or, what is commonly called church, not all those who consider themselves part of the church are part of the church.  They are not born of God.  They have not received the Holy Spirit into their lives to make them true members of the Body of Christ. 

 

In light of what John has said, in this section, can a true Christian hate?  I believe he can.  Hating is a sin, and Christians do sin, but, a true Christian is no longer a hater by his very nature.  He is in fact a new creation in Christ.  He is not what he once was.  He has been transformed by the Holy Spirit into someone he never was before.  For this reason the true Christian cannot live a lifestyle of hatred.  This is something that I believe few Christians understand today. 

 

It is my belief that our modern-day church has minimized what being a Christian is.  It has dumbed it down to simple mental agreement to the historic Jesus.  Then, when it comes to sin in one's life, that sin does not seem to matter as it once did in years past.  Yes, Christians sin, but, John has made it clear throughout his letter, that we must move on towards a sanctified life. 

A true believer is different from a non-believer.  When we minimize this fact, we distort the concept of what a true Christian is.  We water down the fact that the Christian is a new creation in Christ, to the degree that it causes me to question the salvation of those who do not exhibit the reality of a new eternal state.             

 

  

 

 

 

Lesson 14

(1 John 3:21 - 24)

 

The Text

 

21 - Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight.  23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.  24 The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him.  And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 21 

 

"Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God ..." 

 

Note, here, that John did not call his readers "little children" or "children," as he has been doing throughout his letter.  Instead, he calls his readers "dear friends."  The words "dear friends" are translated from the Greek word "agapetos."  You will note that the word "agapetos" finds its roots in the Greek word "agape," meaning, "sacrificial love.”  I, therefore, would translate "agapetos" as "dearly beloved" or "dearly loved" instead of "dear friends."  "Dearly loved," in my opinion, is a stronger phrase that better reflects the meaning of "agapetos," which incorporates the idea of selfless love.   I believe that John thought his readers to be more than friends, especially more than casual friends.  They were those he would sacrifice himself for. 

 

In the last section we noted that, as Christians, sometimes our hearts condemn us, when in fact we should not feel condemned.  Any feeling of condemnation is not a matter of the actual way in which God views us.  God does not condemn the believers.  We have been set free from all of that.  If we feel condemned, that feeling does not represent the mind of God.  It has no relevance to the position in which we stand before God, which is as an innocent person.   The feeling of condemnation is a feeling that needs to be removed from our lives, and that is done by a proper understanding of the position in which we stand before God.  That position is this: as Christians, we have been proclaimed innocent of all charges of sin that were rightly due us.  God, the Judge, has declared us totally righteous and innocent.  The degree to which we know and understand this fact, will be the degree to which we will have full trust and confidence in God.  It is to that degree that we will free ourselves from feelings associated with condemnation.  With this full confidence, we can live the life of a Christian that we have been called to live.  Any doubts about our declared innocence will surely hinder us from living the Christian life successfully.  Doubts will prevent us from both doing God's will and being the representatives to our culture that we have been called to be.

 

The way in which we can free ourselves from unwanted feelings of condemnation is to study the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to sink God's truth into our minds and into our hearts.  Only then can these unwanted and unhealthy feelings leave us for good. 

 

After writing a whole chapter on his sinful nature, a sinful nature that was present in his life, the apostle Paul said that he was not in a place of condemnation before His Lord.  Romans 8:1 and 2 say this:

 

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."

 

Paul was not overcome with a spirit of condemnation.  If he was, he could not have been the effective witness for Jesus that he was.  He understood that a sinful nature was part of who he was, but, he also understood that he was in fact a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5;17).

 

Verse 22

 

"... and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight."

 

The phrase "receive whatever we ask from Him" has been abused and misunderstood by many over the years.  Does this mean that whatever our hearts feel like asking God for, we can expect to receive?  The answer is clearly, "no."  There are a few qualifying factors that we need to consider when thinking about asking Jesus for things.  Two qualifying factors are stated in this verse.  They are: keeping God's commands, and doing the things that please Him.  If these factors are established in our lives, I sincerely doubt that we will be asking for things that are based on selfishness and personal gain. 

 

In John 14:13, John gives another qualifying factor concerning the requests we make to God.  The verse reads: 

 

"Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

 

In this passage, John said that whatever we ask for must be asked in the "name of Jesus."  The phrase "in the name of Jesus" is more than a phrase we attach to the end of a prayer.  We cannot just attach that phrase to a request and expect to receive that for which we have asked.  In the name of Jesus addresses the very nature of Jesus.  It is more than the name He was given on earth.  Our mission on earth as Christians is to represent and reflect Jesus to our surrounding culture.  We represent Jesus' good name.  All we do as Christians is done in the name of Jesus.  All, not some, of what we do as Christians, we do as Jesus ambassadors.  We, thus, ask for things that will clearly help us in our mission to represent and reflect Jesus to the culture in which we live.  We can expect God to give us those things that will help us to fulfill our mission.  If God wants to give us anything beyond what will help us accomplish His will, then that is His choice, not our choice. 

 

John 15:7 states another qualifying factor when it comes to asking God for things.  That verse reads:

 

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you."

 

The word "remains" in this verse means "to live."  This expresses one having a good, and working, relationship with Jesus.  If we have this good, and working, relationship, then we can then ask for whatever we need to represent Jesus and His name to our culture.  Of course, if we have a good relationship with Jesus, we will, as seen in John 14:13, ask according to His will.  

 

A proper hermeneutical approach to Bible study shows us how to understand what John said, here, in his letter.  There are certain qualifications, found in other parts of the New Testament, that must be met before we think about asking God for anything.  Our requests are predicated on God's will, not our will.  We will ask for those things that will help us do His will.  We will not ask for things that distract us from doing His will, or that feed our hedonistic tendencies.          

 

Verse 23    

 

"Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us." 

 

What John said, in this verse, is not a suggestion.  It is something that God requires of all Christians.  The requirement is to "believe in the name of Jesus Christ."  The Greek verb "pisteuo," meaning "to trust," is present tense in this verse.  The command is to trust in the name of Jesus, that is to say, right now we must trust in Jesus.         

 

When using the words "in the name of Jesus," John was saying that we trust, not just what Jesus can do for us, but we trust in who He is.  This is fundamental to being a real Christian.  Trusting our lives in the care of Jesus, as a person, is what salvation is all about.  Our English word "believe," if understood as "giving mental assent to" or as simply "believing in one's mind," does not portray the meaning of John's statement.  John said that we must trust our lives with Jesus, not simply believe in His existence.  All of the satanic world believes that Jesus was, and still is, divine.  James 2:19 says this:

"You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe  ​—  ​and they shudder."

 

The second part of this command that John addressed was to love one another.  Again, John used the Greek word "agape" that is translated into English as "love."  He has been using this word, meaning "sacrificial love," all the way through his letter. 

 

John would have heard this two-fold command from the lips of Jesus Himself.  Matthew 22:37 through 39 says this:

 

"He [Jesus] said to him, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

 

I am sure that you can see the similarity in what both John and Jesus said. 

 

Verse 24

 

"The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him.  And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us."

 

The words "the one who keeps" in the phrase "the one who keeps His commands" are a present Greek participle.  This puts the emphasis on one being a present-day, full-time, keeper of God's commands.  He does not just keep the commands from time to time.  He, by his new nature in Christ, is a command-keeper.  If that is who you are, then, it is obvious that Jesus will abide, or remain, in you and you in Him. 

 

Some people believe that this verse suggests the possibility that one can lose his salvation.   I do not believe John is addressing the doctrine of eternal security in this verse.  I do not think that John had in mind the possibility of losing one's salvation when he penned these words.  If you have become a new creation in Christ, as Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17 said a real Christian is, then you are that new creation, and by virtue of that fact, you are in Jesus and He is in you.       

 

The last part of this verse is important.  John said that the "way we know that he remains in us" is because of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  If you are a born-again believer, and there is no other kind of true believer, it is because the Holy Spirit lives in you.  If the Holy Spirit does not live in you, then you are not born again.  If you do not know that He lives in you, then maybe He does not live in you and you are not a real Christian.  This is an important issue that must be settled in your life. 

The presence of the Holy Spirit in one's life is the validating seal from God that you are a real Christian, that God, through His Spirit, is in you and you are in Him.  The apostle Paul confirmed this, in Ephesians 1:13.  The text says this: 

 

"In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed."

 

The word "sealed" in Paul's statement should not be understood in terms of glue.  That is to say, the Holy Spirit is not some kind of glue that keeps you saved.  The seal spoken of by Paul is a validating seal.  It is like a seal a lawyer would place on a document to prove its validity.  The Holy Spirit's presence in the life of the believer is the heavenly seal that validates one being a Christian.     

 

 

Review

 

The theme of love runs all the way through John's letter, as is also seen in this section.  A true believer is one who has the Holy Spirit in his life, keeps Jesus' commands, and loves the brotherhood of the believers.  With these attributes functional in the believer, the believer can ask for anything that would help his God-given mission to represent Jesus to those in the culture in which he lives.   

Present-day Implications

 

The character trait of a real Christian seen here is that he or she has the Holy Spirit living within him or her.   That being the case, by virtue of the fact that the believer is a brand new creation, he or she will love the brotherhood of believers.  That is a natural outcome of this new state of being.  

 

It is important to understand, as John pointed out here and in his gospel account, that we as Christians can ask things from God.  We, however, must ask in accordance with God's will.  In our present-day, hedonistic, culture that asks for material prosperity to be heaped upon us, we must know that such requests are unbiblical.  It is my thinking that one of the biggest unbiblical influences on western-world Christianity these days is the Prosperity Movement.  Believing that God wants to make the Christian the most materially prosperous people in the world is not a product of Biblical thinking.  It is a product of the hedonistic culture in which we live.  It is, sad to say, an unholy influence on God's holy church.  It is, also, a most detrimental doctrine in the western-world church these days.  It is a cancer that is stifling the mission of the church.  The Prosperity Gospel, then, is a mixture of our secular culture and Biblical culture, not unlike the mixture between the pagan culture and the Christian culture that John was refuting throughout this letter.  If John was alive today, I think he would have some very harsh words to say about the Prosperity Gospel that is being taught by Prosperity teachers. 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 15

(1 John 4:1 - 6)

 

The Text

 

1 - Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.  You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

 

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 1

 

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." 

 

As in the last section of John's letter, John called his readers dear friends, not children as he had been calling them.  I prefer the term "dearly beloved," as in some of the older versions of the Bible, because it better reflects the Greek word "agapetos" that the CSB translates as "dear friends."  Agapetos suggests a friendship that is based on mutual sacrificial love.  In this sense of the word, I believe John viewed his readers as those for whom he would sacrifice his life.  I think that is more than friendship as we might understand friendship today.

 

Note the words "spirits," in this verse.  Our English word "spirit" is translated from the Greek word "pneuma."  At its core, this word means, "breathe," "breath," "wind," or something similar.  The New Testament usage of this word can be seen in a number of ways.  In the New Testament, "pneuma" is used in reference to breath, breathe, wind, angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of men and women.  In what sense of the word did John use it in this verse?

 

There are two possible answers to the above question.  The word "spirit" is either in reference to the spirit of man or to demonic spirits, or, perhaps to both.  There is such a thing as the spirit of a person.  For example, we as human beings often speak from our own spirit, despite the fact that we claim to speak from the influence of the Holy Spirit.  Maybe John had this meaning of spirit in mind when he penned these words.  On the other hand, the reference to the spirit of the antichrist may suggest otherwise.   

 

Revelation 13:2 tells us that, the dragon, which is Satan, gave the beast, which is the antichrist, its power.  The antichrist either was heavily influenced by Satan, or, like Judas at the Last Supper, Satan entered the antichrist.  I believe the last option to be the case.  If, then, the spirits John wrote about, in verse 1, are associated with the spirit of the antichrist, then the spirits he was referencing are demonic spirits.        

 

The verbs "do not believe" and "test" in this verse are present tense imperative Greek verbs.  This means that what John said here was not a suggestion.  Imperative means it was a command.  John's readers must test every spirit, or, everyone speaking from a spirit, to see if they are in fact speaking on behalf of God.  John gave this command because his readers had to test the spirits of the heretics that were attempting to draw the church away from faith in Jesus.  They also had to test the heresies these heretics were teaching.  Testing both people and their teaching is important in the church.  One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to members of the church is the gift of discerning of spirits, as seen in 1 Corinthians 12:10. 

 

Involved in the process of testing, or discerning, is judging, something our western-world, antichrist, culture frowns upon as being judgmental.  In Biblical terms, judging is part of the Christian life, as is clearly seen here in this verse.  We do, however, make a righteous judgment and not a judgment based on appearance, as Jesus commanded us, in John 7:24.  That verse reads:

 

"Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment."

 

I believe I can safely say that Jesus told us how to judge, in the above statement.  He did not tell us that we must not judge.

 

The verb "do not believe," in verse 1 of chapter 4, is translated from the Greek word "pisteuo," and means, "do not trust."  The simple Biblical fact is that we are not to trust everything we hear without testing its validity.  Christians are not to be naive. We are to be sufficiently educated so that we can make a clear-minded, Biblically-based, judgment call. Without such a discerning spirit, we will inevitably get sidetracked in our Christian faith.  

 

John continued by saying that "many false prophets have gone out into the world."  I would suggest that wherever there is a true prophet or preacher of the gospel there is most likely a false prophet or preacher of the gospel.   This was certainly the case in John's day.  Right from the beginning of church history there have always been false teaching and false teachers.  It will be that way until the day comes when Jesus puts an end to all kinds of falseness.  The fact that false teaching and false teachers will remain with us until Jesus returns should not be a discouragement to us.  We should just realize that this is our present reality and follow John's instructions to test the spirits as we move on with our mission.  We must realize that we live in a conflicted culture that battles between that which is true and that which is false.               

 

Verse 2

 

"This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."

 

In this verse, John stated the fundamental way we are to test the spirits to see if they are from God.  The word "confess" is important in the process of testing.  The word "confess" is translated from the Greek word "homologeo."  This word is made up of two Greek words.  "Homo" means "the same" and "logeo" means "to speak."  Confessing as it pertains to the Christian means this: we are to speak the same things God speaks.  In other words, confession is agreeing with God on all matters. 

 

The specific thing John said, here, that we must agree with God on is the nature and essence of who Jesus is.  John said that every spirit, or, everyone speaking from a spirit, must agree with God that Jesus, the Christ, has come to earth in the flesh.  In other words, anyone who says that Jesus is not divine, and not God in a human body, is speaking from a wrong and false spirit.  That spirit would either be one's own spirit or a demonic spirit.

 

The verb "has come" in the phrase "has come in the flesh" is extremely important when thinking of Jesus being divine, or God in a human form.  The verb "has come" is a Greek perfect participle.  A perfect verb is a past action that has present implications.  A participle is both a noun and a verb; is both an action word and a person, place, or thing.  A participle puts the emphasis on one not just doing a certain action from time to time, but on one who, by his very nature exhibits the action all of the time.  So how does this perfect participle apply to Jesus?

 

Jesus' incarnation at His conception in Mary's womb was a divine, one-time, action.  That one-time divine action of being conceived in Mary's womb as God in human form is still real in present time.  The fact that this verb tense is a perfect participle means that right now, and for all time, Jesus is divine.  It is not that He exhibited some divine character traits.  Jesus is, right now and forever will be, by His very nature, God in whatever form He presently is or will be.  

 

Another point that needs consideration is this: the heretics believed that Jesus was just a man that, when water-baptized, received the Holy Spirit upon his life.  Then, just before Jesus died, the Spirit, or the Christ spirit as they called it, left Him.  What John taught here was in direct contrast to what the heretics taught.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in one sense of the word, are one.  The terms "Spirit of Jesus" and "Spirit of Christ" are equated with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.  Jesus has always been divine and He always will be divine, something that contradicted the false claims of the heretics concerning the nature and essence of Jesus.        

 

Verse 3

 

"... but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world." 

 

Again, the word "confess," in this verse, must be understood in terms of agreement, because that is what the Greek word "homolegeo," which is translated as "confess," means. The reverse to what John said, in the last verse, is seen, in this verse.  Every spirit that does not confess, or, does not presently agree with God that Jesus is in fact divine, is not of God. 

 

John differentiates between the spirit of the antichrist and the actual antichrist that will appear on the world scene at the end of this age.  There will be a man, and he will be one who the spirit of Satan enters, as the book of Revelation shows.  Before that day comes, the spirit of the antichrist will afflict both the world and the church. This end-time antichrist has been given several names in the Bible.  The apostle Paul called him the "man of sin" and the "lawless one," in 2 Thessalonians 2.  Some Bible teachers suggest that there are at least thirty plus different names given to this man.   

 

One important thing we learn, here, from John is that behind one who speaks, whether that one is of God or of the devil, is a spirit.  John did not specifically say that it is the man or woman who does not confess.  He spoke of the spirit that does not confess.  John is moving beyond the physical realm, into the spiritual realm that influences the physical realm.  There is a spiritual world that exists in another dimension that few know anything about.

 

Verse 4          

 

"You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."

 

 

This verse is a clear affirmation of the faith of John's readers.  He said, "you are from God."  This is in stark contrast to the false believers who were not from God.  There was no doubt in John's mind that those who he called his "children" were truly born-again believers.  They were his children in the faith.

 

The word "them" in the phrase "you have conquered them" would be in reference either to the spirits of the present-day antichrists, or, the antichrists themselves. 

 

The verb "have conquered" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.  This means that at some prior date, his readers had conquered the evil spirits and the antichrists they influenced, and, his readers remained conquerors as John penned this letter.  The indicative form of this verb tells us that there were no doubts that those to whom John wrote were conquerors, right then at that time.

 

Just when, or even how, John's readers conquered the evil world of the antichrists is unknown.  This is speculative, but the fact that the antichrists, or the false believers, left the church, might possibly be part of the conquering process. 

 

The reason why John's readers were able to conquer the enemy was because He who was in them was greater than he who was in the world.   He who was in them is obviously in reference to the Holy Spirit.  Those who were in the world were probably those with the antichrist spirit who were influenced by the prince of this world, namely, Satan.   

 

Verse 5

 

"They are from the world.  Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them."

 

The word "they," in this verse, would be in reference to those possessing the spirit of antichrist.  They belonged to the surrounding sinful, even satanic, culture. 

 

The word "world" is translated from the Greek word "kosmos" and should be understood in a cultural sense.  In first-century, Greco-Roman, thinking, "kosmos" meant an orderly arranging of things.  It could be an orderly arrangement of chairs or an orderly arrangement of a civilization. 

 

What John said, in this verse, is not rocket science.  It is common sense.  What people speak is heavily influenced by the surrounding culture in which they live.  No matter the cultural setting, people listen to those of their kind.  

 

Verse 6

 

"We are from God.  Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us.  This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception."

 

John confirmed that both he and his readers were from God.  They belonged to God and their lives showed that to be true.  In the terms of John 3:1 to 5, they were born from God.  This is yet another re-affirmation that John's readers are truly born-again-of-the-Spirit believers.

 

This verb "know" in the phrase "this is how we know" is a present participle.  This tells us that John's readers were "knowers," not just people who knew.  At the core of who they were, they were then, present knowing ones, and, such people, according to John, listen to them.  The true believer has the ability to hear from other true believers of the things that pertain to God.  If one does not have such capability to hear and listen, he might not be a true believer.  This is in direct contrast to the false believers, those with the spirit of antichrist and who were not listening to John and his readers.

 

One who is a real knower of God, by his very new nature in Christ, will recognize the Spirit of truth.  He is capable of discerning what is spoken from the Spirit of God and what is spoken from a spirit of deception.  Such discernment was important in John's day and it is just as important in our day. 

 

As I have been saying throughout this commentary, the word "know" as John often used it means "to personally, or intimately, know."  This is not a knowing about God, but having a personal relationship with Him.  

 

 

Review

 

John said that not everyone who claims to speak on behalf of God is actually from God.  Those who have a personal relationship with God have the ability to distinguish between those speaking from the Spirit of God and those speaking from their own spirit or a demon spirit. In some cases, as stated by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:10, there are some in the Body of Christ who have a special gift from the Holy Spirit, the gift of discernment of spirits.     

 

The most fundamental way in which a Christian can know if someone is speaking on behalf of God is if that person acknowledges that Jesus has come in the flesh.  This simply means that if a person does not believe that Jesus was God in human form while on earth (and I might add, is God in glorified human form now) does not belong to God, and thus cannot be trusted.  If a person does not belong to God, he cannot speak on behalf of God.  

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

The character trait of a Christian seen in this passage is that he has the Holy Spirit living within him, and, is thus able to distinguish between true and false spirits, true and false teachers, and true and false believers. 

 

It is my opinion that now, in 2019 as I write these words, a spirit of deception is attacking Christians from all angles in a way that we have not seen in the recent past.  This deception is seen in how we view the culture around us.  For example, our culture says that the homosexual lifestyle is morally fine.  According to Scripture that is not the case, but many Christians are now siding with our culture on this issue.

 

Another area of deception that is prevalent in the West today is in the world of politics.  There is fast becoming an unholy alliance of Christian and political thought that is distorting, or watering down, what the Bible teaches about nations and their leaders.  Christians are promoting ungodly men as if they were godly, only because these men promote one or two of their religious convictions.  I suggest, as I believe the apostle John would say, that the antichrist himself will promote things that sound Biblical and godly, but in fact are not.  This will especially be the case with his relationship with the nation of Israel .  I fear that many so-called Christians will fall to the deception of the antichrist because they have failed to discern the difference between the Spirit of God and the spirit of Satan. 

 

Deception is fast becoming a prevalent problem in today's world.  It is for this reason that we have no other choice but to test the spirits, and, by so doing we make judgements.  Testing incorporates judging.  There is no way around that.  Judging is something our secular culture tells us not to do.

 

There is a Biblical form of judging.  Jesus, in John 7:24, said this:

 

"Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment."

 

Jesus did not tell us not to judge.  To be specific, He told us not to judge by the mere appearance.  We are, however, to judge righteously, or, rightly.  We are to judge according to the facts.  This matter of judging is clearly being misunderstood in much of the western-world, church these days.          

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 16

(1 John 4:7 - 12)

 

The Text

 

7 - Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 7  

 

"Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

 

Throughout John's letter he either called his readers, children, little children, or dear friends.  We see the words "dear friends" here, in the CSB's version of the Bible.  The Greek word "agapetos" is translated as "dear friends" throughout 1 John in the CSB.  As I have said before, I prefer the words "dearly beloved" over the words "dear friends," because that better reflects the Greek word "agapelos" that implies a brotherhood of people who are willing to express sacrificial love to one another.

 

Our English words "love" and "loves," in this verse and throughout John's letter, are translated from the Greek word "agape" or "agapeo," depending on whether its usage is a noun or a verb.  These Greek words express "sacrificial love."  Therefore, when John said that everyone who loves is born of God, we must understand the love that John was thinking about is the agape, selfless love.  It is God's love, which comes from God Himself and is worked in and through the lives of the believers.  According to what John said here, if one is not in the flow of God's love, then that one is not born of God and is not a true Christian.  I am not saying that a Christian cannot block the flow of God's love into his life, because he can, but that should not be the case.  The intended goal of God's love that was demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus should find its completion in the life of the believer flowing out to others.       

 

The verb "loves" in the phrase "everyone who loves" is a Greek present participle.  This puts the emphasis on the one who expresses the sacrificial love by virtue of who he is, rather than on the action of loving alone.  He does not simply do acts of love, but he is inherently a lover.  This is what a participle means, and we have seen John use present participles regularly throughout his letter. 

 

John described the believer in this verse as being a lover by nature.  The believer became a lover because, as John said, "he has been born of God."  The verb "has been born" is a perfect tense Greek verb.  This means that at one past moment of time, those whom John had in mind were born of God, and, because of that past experience, were still born-again ones, when John penned this letter.  The fact that these people were allowing God's love to come into them and then were living out God's love in daily living, proved they were born again of the Holy Spirit.  

 

The words "and know" in the phrase "and know God" is a present indicative verb.  This means, that at the moment of John's writing, these people knew God.  They had to have known God because they had His love being demonstrated in their lives.  As is the case throughout this letter, the words "you know God" are a re-affirmation that John's readers, despite any doubts they might have had due to the confusion caused by the false teachers, really did know God, and knew Him experientially.                              

 

Verse 8

 

"The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love." 

 

In verse 8, John said that "God is love."  He also said this again, in 1 John 4:16.  These three all-important Biblical words expressed a very foreign concept in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religious culture.  In the pagan religion of the day, gods were not considered to be loving.  They were understood to be needy, even greedy, and thus, demanded love and attention from their adherents.  If their followers did not express acts of love, then the gods' favour would be withdrawn from them.

 

The pagan gods' attitude and behaviour makes it clear that their invention was a product of a sinful human imagination.  The pagans knew nothing else except their sinfulness.  They had no other model on which to base the invention of their gods.  In other words, the pagan gods were a mirror-image of their pagan inventors.  Pagans could not invent a holy and loving god because they knew nothing of such character traits.      

 

According to John, the Christian God did not only do loving acts, He, by His very essence, was love.  This had to have been a challenging concept for the Gentile pagans to comprehend.  It would have been so foreign to their religious culture.     

 

"The one who does not love," is one who is inherently not a lover by nature, since, once again, the verb tense is a present Greek participle.  The people John had in mind, here, might have demonstrated acts of genuine selfless love from time to time, but according to the verb tense John used, they were not lovers by nature.  They did not possess the love from God that could be demonstrated to others on a continual basis.  They could not have been born-again believers as John spoke about, in the last verse.  They were not lovers by nature because they did not know God.  If they had known God, and known Him experientially, they would have demonstrated sacrificial love based on their very loving, new nature in Christ.  That was not the case. 

 

Anyone who really has a personal relationship with God, or, is in the process of developing such a relationship, knows that God, by His very nature is love.  Part of the essence of God is sacrificial love.  This is an extremely important and fundamental character trait of God that we must know in our hearts as a burning conviction.  Too often in the past, the Evangelical Church has portrayed God as being a mean and nasty God.  He is not that kind of God.  This does not mean that God loves to the exclusion of being just.  God is as fully just as He is love, and, justice demands an accounting of sin.  Justice demands a verdict placed upon the one committing sin.  This too is part of John's message, as we saw in 1 John 3:18.  It is a basic teaching that consistently runs through the New Testament, and the whole Bible.      

 

Verse 9

 

"God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him." 

 

Anyone who is at all familiar with the New Testament will realize that what John said, in this verse, is the same as he said previously, in John 3:16., but he just said it in a slightly different way.   

 

The verb "was revealed" in the phrase "God's love was revealed" is an aorist Greek verb.  This aorist verb is a one-time, past-action, verb.  This would mean that at one specific point in the past, God's love was revealed.  When was God's love revealed?  I believe the next phrase answers this question for us. 

 

God's love was revealed "when God sent His one and only Son into the world."  When was that?   God sent His Son into the world when Jesus, God's Son, was conceived in the womb of Mary.      

 

Think of God's love in this way.  Jeremiah 17:9 says this:

 

"The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable ​— ​who can understand it?"

 

What Jeremiah said shows us a bit of how God views sinful humanity.  The human condition is so deceitful that we do not know how deceitful it really is.  The CSB says that our human condition has no cure.  Knowing this, and I'm sure we do not understand the human condition as God does, it is simply an incredible act of selfless love for God to enter sinful humanity.  This love of God did not end when Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb.  Jesus demonstrated the selfless love of God throughout His life and ministry as He lived among sinful humanity.  Understanding that Jesus' human nature was sinless, His existence on earth must have been frustrating at times.  I believe you can see this frustration in the gospel accounts from time to time. 

 

The love of God took Jesus to his sacrificial death on the cross, which John would speak about, in the next verse, but, the love of God in Jesus' life did not end there either.

 

John 1:1 tells us that prior to His incarnation, Jesus was the logos of God, and that He was both with God and was God.  As humans, I do not think we can totally comprehend John's statement about the nature of Jesus.  In whatever manner or form Jesus existed prior to being conceived in Mary's womb, He no longer exists as He once did.  He has taken on a new form, or as Christians have called it, a glorified human body.  What that body exactly looks like, I do not think we really know, but one thing we do know.  Jesus' present existence is not what it once was prior to His incarnation in a human form.  For this reason I say that Jesus altered His very existence, His very form, for all of eternity, and He did so, because He loved us.  This, I believe, was His ultimate sacrifice.

 

Look at what Romans 8:29 says.

 

"For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."

According to Paul, Jesus now sits at the right hand of His Father, in His glorified human form.  What Jesus is presently like, we will also be some day, because we will be like Him.  John, in 1 John 3:9, said that we will be like Jesus someday.  Paul, in Romans 8:29, told us that God has predestined, or predetermined, that the believer will be conformed to the very likeness, or image, of Jesus.  Paul said that Jesus is the firstborn among those who have died in faith.  As Christians we will, therefore, take on Jesus' new form.   

We will have Jesus' very likeness and image.  That sounds very much like Genesis 1:26 and 27, where we read that God created man in His likeness and image.  As new creations in Christ, as Paul put it, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, we will eventually be made in the likeness and image of Jesus.   

Verse 10

 

"Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."     

 

As I said earlier, the religious culture of John's day knew nothing about gods being loving.  The gods did not love.  They demanded their followers to love them, and if their followers refused to love them, the gods' favour would be withdrawn from their lives.  This is not so with the Christian God.  John said that it was God who first loved us.  We, as sinful human beings, did not love God first.  This would have been a very difficult concept for Gentile pagans to comprehend in John's day.  It presented them with a whole new concept of God and the meaning of love.  

 

John said that we, as humans, did not first love God, but He first loved us, and that was seen in God sending Jesus to us.  The verbs "loved" and "sent," as seen here and in the last verse, are aorist verbs.  An aorist verb is a one-time, past-action verb.  The one-time action John would have had in mind is the incarnation of Jesus in Mary's womb. 

 

This reminds me of what the apostle Paul said, in Romans 5:8.  The text reads:

 

"But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

 

Paul and John were in agreement.  We did not love God, but, when we were steeped in our sinful existence, Jesus demonstrated His love for us with His entrance into sinful humanity and with His atoning sacrifice on the cross.  

We note the words "atoning sacrifice," in this verse.  We saw these words before, back in chapter 2, verse 2.  They are translated from the Greek word "hilasmos."  This word was a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religious culture.  Pagans felt the need to do something that would turn the wrath of the gods away from them.  They would do a number of things.  Whatever they did was understood to be a "hilasmos," an atoning sacrifice.  I prefer the term "propitiation" as the King James Bible translates "hilasmos," in this verse, and as well in 1 John 2:2.  Propitiation is the process whereby God's wrath is turned away from the believer.  

 

For the Christian, we can do nothing to turn God's wrath away from us.  Jesus did all that was necessary to remove the wrath of God from us.  He did so when He was punished on the cross on our behalf.  His sacrificial death, that removed our sins from the heavenly record, also removed God's righteous wrath from our lives in order for us to be reconciled to God.  John called this act of divine selfless love an "atoning sacrifice," as translated in the CSB or a "propitiation," as in the KJV. 

 

We should understand that wrath is a strong, even explosive, form of anger.  The two words are similar in meaning, but not exactly the same.      

 

It seems to be an ever-present human tendency for us to want to do something to be accepted by God.  Over the centuries multitudes of rules, laws, and human traditions have been created by the church in an attempt to win God's favour.  All of these things are worthless. In fact, they tell Jesus that what He did on the cross for us needs some improvement, and our rules, laws, and tradition are the improvement.  Such practices are an abomination to God.  Telling Jesus that we can improve on the love He displayed on the cross is one of the worst sins we, as Christians, can commit.  

 

To have a proper understanding of what John was saying, here in verse 10, we need a good understanding of the word "propitiation.  In today's Christianity, this word is not well understood.  Along with the word "propitiation," the word "appease," also needs some thought. 

 

The word "appease," as it applies to human relationships, means "to pacify someone by giving into his or her wishes or demands."   This results in a peaceful co-existence between the one being appeased and the one doing the appeasing.  It only took a couple hundred of years of Christian history before pagan influences crept into Christian theology and practice, and the concept of appeasing God through some kind of personal sacrifice was one such pagan influence.  Christian monks, for example, would emasculate themselves, in an attempt to rid themselves of sexual desire, which they considered to be sin.  They believed this sacrifice would remove God's wrath from their lives.  As a man, it is difficult for me to imagine castrating myself, especially with such crude carving tools, in order to find favour with God. 

 

Pagans believed that their gods demanded, even needed, to be pampered and pleased.  They bent over backwards to appease their gods.  In King James vernacular, the removal of wrath in any relationship is called "propitiation."  Propitiation is a long-forgotten, but most-important, theological word that needs to be re-introduced into our Christian vocabulary with its Biblical, not pagan, meaning. 

 

One reason why the word "propitiation" has grown out of use is because many people find it impossible to believe a loving God could exhibit wrath, which is a strong, explosive, form of anger.  Jesus thought differently.  John 3:36 says this:

 

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

     

God's wrath is real, but, unlike human wrath, it does not emanate from a spirit of retaliation, prejudice, or any other such sin.  It is based on a righteous justice that demands an accounting from the one committing sin.  Justice that does not issue a verdict is not just.  For this reason, it was necessary for God to exercise justice by demonstrating His wrath as punishment for sin.  The apostle Paul commented on this, in Romans 3:25.  The KJV says it this way.     

 

"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;"

 

Okay, the KJV rendering of this verse is not easy to grasp.   The NIV puts Romans 3:25 this way.

 

"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood — to be received by faith.  He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished."

 

The NIV's substitution of "sacrifice of atonement" for "propitiation" is just as confusing because many of us do not understand atonement either.

 

Propitiation, as stated, in Romans 3:25, is the process by which God's wrath has been removed from the life of the believer.  This process occurred when Jesus, in an act of voluntary submission to God's justice, suffered God's wrath for our sin.  The cross of Christ, then, was the demonstration of God's justice.  It provided the opportunity for us to be in peaceful co-existence with God, occurring once we, like Jesus, voluntarily submit our lives to God.              

 

We cannot improve upon the cross of Christ by means of any kind of personal sacrifice, as attempted by the monks of old.  We can do nothing to remove God's wrath from our lives.  It was the love of God that has removed the wrath of God from our lives. 

 

Verse 11

 

"Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another."

 

There is nothing difficult to understand in this verse.  If God loved us, as seen in Him becoming human and being sacrificed for us, then we should love one another.  The love John has been writing about is sacrificial love.  It is not reciprocal love, as in, "I will love you if you love me."

 

The word "loved," in the phrase "if God loved us," is an aorist Greek verb.  This means the exact love John had in mind was demonstrated in one past moment of time, which, I have been saying, was when God, in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ, was conceived in Mary's womb.  Verse 10 stated that God loved us when "He sent His Son," as in sending Jesus to earth in human form, "to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins."  The culmination of God's love that was seen in God sending Jesus to earth was demonstrated in the cross of Christ.        

 

Verse 12

 

"No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us."

 

John said, here, that "no one has ever seen God."  The Greek word translated as "seen" (theaomai) does mean to see with one's eyes.  However, there is an element to this Greek word that suggests "comprehend."  And so "no one has ever seen or comprehended God" would be an appropriate wording.  God is so far beyond human comprehension it is obvious that no one has ever comprehended all who God is. 

 

John was saying as well that no one has seen God with his eyes.  Moses was in God's presence, but he did not actually see God.  Theologians have debated for years whether we will ever be able to see God as He is.  I am not sure that we will ever, in eternity, be able to see God.  One thing I know though: we will see Jesus because we will be like Him.  Maybe then, we will see God. 

 

John said that "if God's love remains (lives) in us, His love is complete in us."  The word "complete," or "perfected" in the King James Bible, is important here.  We should not understand God's love in us to ever be perfectly worked out in our lives.  We are human, and, our humanity always inhibits, to one degree or another, God's love working in our lives in a good measure of perfection.  We should, however, understand His love to be complete in us.  John was saying that the intended goal of God's love that was demonstrated in the life of Jesus was to have its fulfillment found in His people.  This was the case with those to whom John was writing.   

 

 

Review

 

This section of John's letter concerns agape-style love.  One who has been born again of the Holy Spirit has been united with God.  Therefore the ultimate love, God's love, can flow into the lives of the believers.  Then, that love can, and should, flow out to those people God places in the path of the believers at any given time. 

 

One who is not born of God via the Holy Spirit is not united with God.  Logic, then, states that the person not in union with God cannot receive God's love into his life in order to demonstrate it to others.  

 

The concept of God's wrath being removed from our lives in Jesus' act of propitiation is seen here, in verse 10.  The doctrine of propitiation is important in Christian theology.  

 

 

Present-day Implications

 

The character quality of a true Christian that is seen in this passage is that he has been born of God.  He has been born again of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus put it, in John 3:1 through 6.  When a person has the Holy Spirit within Him, he has the divine pipeline to heaven from where God's love can flow to him and continue to flow to others in his daily life.  This is the goal, not only of the Christian, but the intended goal of God's love that was seen in Jesus while on earth. 

 

God, through Jesus, loved us.  That love is made perfect, or better said, finds its completion in our demonstration of selfless love.  When this is exhibited in the lives of believers, and in the life of the church, our witness for Jesus will be effective.  Jesus Himself said this, as seen in John 13:35.

 

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

     

Christians over the years have not demonstrated this love as they should have.  It is for this reason the church has not been as effective as it should have been.  It may be hard for us to believe, but Christians in centuries past, have actually killed one another over doctrinal differences.  That does not demonstrate selfless love. 

 

A simple reading of 1 Corinthians 12 shows that true believers have been immersed into the lives of those that Jesus has placed them alongside of in the Body of Christ.  We are so placed alongside of others for both support and ministry.  Without selfless love flowing through these relationships in the Body of Christ, the church will be disabled, as it presently is in many localities.     

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 17

(1 John 4:13 - 21)

 

The Text

 

13 - This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.  14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior.  15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God —   God remains in him and he in God.  16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.  17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.  18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment.  So, the one who fears is not complete in love.  19 We love because he first loved us.  20 If anyone says, 'I love God,' and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.  For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 13

 

"This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit." 

 

What John said, here, is crucial to each one who calls himself or herself a Christian.  Throughout this letter John has been re-affirming to his readers that they can be sure that they are true believers.  This verse is not difficult to understand.  John said that the way that you know you are a true Christian is that the Holy Spirit lives in you.  He does not come upon you from time to time.  He actually dwells in your very being.  You have been joined to Jesus in Spirit as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:17:

 

"But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him."

 

The Greek verb translated into English as "we know" is a present indicative verb.  This means that, at the time of John writing this letter, his readers knowing was a certainty.  Being certain of your salvation is fundamental to Christian growth.  Without this certainty, you will never mature in the Lord.         

 

The apostle Paul wrote about the Holy Spirit living in the believer, in Ephesians 1:13.  He wrote this: 

 

"In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed."

 

The seal Paul wrote about is a seal of approval, or, a stamp of approval.  It is similar to a lawyer's seal that approves the authenticity of a document.  The Holy Spirit's presence in one's life is the heavenly seal that proves one to be an authentic child of God. 

 

If you do not have the Holy Spirit living within you, then you do not belong to God.  Look at what Paul wrote, in Romans 8:9.

 

"You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.  If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him."

 

You cannot get it any clearer than how Paul put it.  If you do not have the Spirit of God within you, you do not belong to God, and you are not a Christian.

 

As I have said earlier, the word "remain" is translated from the Greek word "meno," which means "to live" or "to dwell".  John was thinking of the Holy Spirit living in a person.  I tend to think the word "remain" suggests the possibility that the Holy Spirit can leave the believer.  For this reason I like the word "live," or also the word "dwell," because, in my thinking, they do not suggest leaving.    
 

Verse 14

 

"And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior." 

 

The phrase "we have seen" reminds me of how John opened his letter.  I believe the word "we," in this verse, means the "collective we," which refers to John and his readers. 

 

The verb "we have seen" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.   The verb "we testify" is a present indicative verb.  When putting the two verbs together you get this: John and his readers have seen and understood the message of Jesus in the past, and they, in present time, testify to that message, which is, "God sent His Son as the world's Saviour." 

 

The verb "sent" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.  This means that the sending of Jesus to be the world's Saviour was a past action and it implies that there are still present, completed results and implications for us today. The fact of the matter was that John and his readers were preaching a relevant message.  Jesus, God's Son, who was in past time sent into the world, is still the Saviour of anyone in the world who would receive Him and His Spirit into his life.

 

Verse 15

 

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God — God remains in him and he in God." 

 

At this point, in John's letter, he is really getting into the fundamental truth of how one becomes a true, born-again believer in Jesus.  The verb "confesses" in this verse is what is called a Greek aorist subjunctive.  This will mean nothing to most, especially since I have not yet commented on the particular verb tense in this book.  In simple terms, the verb tense emphasizes the action without signifying the time of the action.  Therefore the important thing is that the confession is made.

 

The Greek word "homolegeo," as I have mentioned before, is made up of two Greek words.  "Homo" means "the same as" while "legeo" means "to speak."  Put these two words together and you have "to speak the same thing," which in turn means "to agree with another." 

 

The point to be made here, from the meaning of the word "homolegeo," is this.  The one who agrees with God that Jesus is His Son, meaning that Jesus is divine, has God remaining, or living, in him.  Such a confessor also remains, or lives, in God. 

 

As I have also said before, I prefer the word "lives" instead of the word "remains."  John used the Greek word "meno," in a number of places in his letter.  This Greek word means "to live or to dwell."  I suggest that the word "lives" does not exactly have the same meaning as "remains."  

 

Verse 16    

 

"And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him." 

 

The words "have come to know" and "to believe" are both perfect indicative verbs.  In both instances, then, "have come to know" and "to believe" are past actions with present-day, completed results.  John's reader's came to know the truth of Jesus in the past and they still know and believe in the present.  Once again, as we have seen throughout this letter, John was re-assuring his readers that they were genuine, born-of-God believers, despite what the heretics might have said about them. 

 

John said that the one who loves remains, or lives, in God, God will remain or live in him.  Of course, this is the sacrificial love as John defined love.  We must not understand this to mean that anyone who loves, as our culture may define love, lives in God.  Christians must agree with God's definition of words.  Too often we see words in the Bible and use these words with our twenty-first-century cultural definition of them.  That is a mistake.  John is writing about love that is expressed in some kind of sacrifice, something are so-called tolerant culture knows little about.   

 

As I finish writing this commentary in the summer of 2019, our North American culture is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the rock concert known as Woodstock .  Woodstock was billed as a festival of peace and love, and, is still seen that way today.  Woodstock has nothing to do with Biblical peace and love as John wrote about in his first letter.  Woodstock was all about free love, or, free sex, and that is not agape style love.  It was all about self-centered, hedonism.         

Verse 17

  

"In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world."

 

We have seen the word "complete" in John's letter before.  Some versions of the Bible use the word "perfect" but that gives a wrong meaning to what John was saying.  We do not love perfectly.  The word "complete," as John has been using it means this:  the love of God that was demonstrated in the life of Jesus was intended to find its completion, or, its intended goal, in the lives of those who believe.

 

This is the second time John has written about being confident on the Day of Judgment.  John is not thinking about the White Throne Judgment that we read about, in Revelation 20.  He is talking about the Judgment Seat of Christ, as Paul explained, in 1 Corinthians 3:10 and following.  It is at that time when the Christian's good works in the Lord will be judged.  All the works will be judged and those done in faith, motivated by the Spirit of God will be rewarded,  Those works performed with wrong motives, apart from faith, will be burned in the fire and not be rewarded.  John's prayer for both himself and his readers is that no one will be ashamed of himself when his or her works will be judged. 

Understanding that what we do for Jesus in this present life, or what we do not do for Him in this life, will be judged by Jesus Himself, should be a serious thought that challenges us to get off our couches and serve Jesus as He has called us to do.   

 

The advice that John gave his readers, and to us as well, is that if we do not want to be ashamed on the Day of Judgment, then we are to be in the world as Jesus presently is in heaven.  The more we become like Jesus, then the more confidence we will have in this life and on the day when our works will be judged.                   

 

Verse 18

 

"There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment.  So, the one who fears is not complete in love."

 

This statement would have been difficult for Gentile pagans to think through.  In their relationships with their gods there was much fear.  They feared their gods, because if they did not please their gods, their gods would send their wrath upon their lives.

 

John said that fear suggests punishment, and punishment is what the pagans feared from their gods if they did not please them.  John said that perfect, or complete love, drives out fear.  I have commented on the word "complete" before.  The love of God has been demonstrated in the life of Jesus.  When the Holy Spirit enters our lives, God wants His love to find its completion, or, its intended goal of being expressed in and through our lives.  When this takes place, we do not fear being punished by God.  We will also not be ashamed of ourselves on the day He judges our works. 

 

We should know that Christians should not fear being punished by God.  Jesus has taken that punishment on Himself on our behalf.  We will, however, experience God's discipline, but discipline as seen in the Bible speaks of training or instructing us, not punishing us.    

 

You might ask this.  "Does not the Bible tell us to fear God?"  The Bible does tell us to fear God, but that fear is reverence.  We reverence Him for who He is, and, as Hebrews 12:29 states, God is a consuming fire.  If we were to stand in the immediate presence of God, I believe our first reaction would be to fear His awesomeness.  I think we would be afraid until we saw His arms of love outstretched toward us.  The God we would feel like running away from in fear is the God we actually run to in love.     

 

 

To be precise, the fear John wrote about concerned being punished by God.  If we stood before God at this very moment, we might well be afraid because of His awesomeness, but I am sure He would envelop us in love, comfort, and peace.  We should never be afraid of God punishing us, or, even thinking in those terms.           

 

Verse 19

 

"We love because he first loved us." 

 

There is nothing that is too difficult for us to understand about this verse.  For anyone of us who loves, with the agape, selfless love, we love because God first loved us. 

 

I have heard this question asked: "Can a non-Christian perform acts of selfless love?"  I think one can.  Does that mean he, by his very nature or essence, is a lover, especially as defined by God?  I don't think so.  If a non-Christian expresses any kind of sacrificial loving act, it is because God, his creator, the One who formed his very spirit and soul (Zechariah 12:1) is love. 

 

On the other hand, if we are thinking of sacrificial love that flows directly from God to the believer, then, I would suggest a non-Christian is not in a position to receive such love from God to pass on to others.  There is a humanistic form of sacrificial love and there is a God-given sacrificial love.  The difference between the two is from where they emanate.       

 

For Christians, we have been recreated as a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Part of our new nature in Christ is to be loving people.  We, therefore, by virtue of who we have become in Christ, are lovers, as defined by God.  We simply just need to express this love more than we presently do.  We may struggle with living out selfless love, but, if the Holy Spirit of God lives in us, we do have the ability to express His love.         

 

Verse 20

 

"If anyone says, 'I love God, 'and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.  For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen."

 

John made a strong statement, here, that needs understanding.  He said that if one says he loves God but he hates his brother, that one is a liar.  Do Christians ever hate a brother or sister in the Lord?  I dare say that history tells us that Christians do, at least at times, hate a brother or sister in Christ.  If they say they love God and hate their brother or sister, they are at least lying, but John does not say they are just lying.  He said they are liars.  Can a Christian be a liar, that is, one who by his nature is a liar?  The phrase, "the person who does not love" may help explain this.  Those words are a present participle.  This means, by virtue of who this person is, he does not love.   He or she does not just not love from time to time, but does not love because that is who he is at the core of who he or she is.  Christians can lie.  Christians can hate, but, can Christians be a hater at the core of who they have become in Christ?  Well, I question that.  John might have had the heretics in mind when he penned these words.  Maybe they were the haters.               

 

Verse 21

 

"And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister."

 

This statement is simple for us to understand.  A lover of God should be a lover of his or her brothers and sisters in Christ.  If the church is ever to function as it must, as Jesus' representative to the world, then we must follow the command to love, with the agape, sacrificial love John was talking about in this passage.

 

 

 

 

 

Review

 

There can be much said in a review to this section.  It is jam-packed full of Biblical truth.  John began by saying that the true Christian is one who has the Holy Spirit living in him.  One who does not have the Holy Spirit residing in him, does not belong to God, as Paul said, in Romans 8:9.  That person is not a Christian. 

 

The one who has the Holy Spirit living in him will be a confessor, by virtue of being a new creation in Christ.  That is to say, he will continually agree with God on all things, because the word "confess," as John has been using it, means "to agree."

 

John also pointed out that a true believer will do good works.  Doing good is just what he does because that is who he is.  Part of these good works is loving one's brothers and sisters in Christ, and at times, this love may demand selfless acts of love.

 

The one who lives in the love of God will not fear Jesus now or when he stands before Him some day to have his works judged.  One who lives in the love of God, and is actively involved in serving Him out of pure motives, will not be ashamed of himself on the day Jesus judges his service, done in His name.

 

 

Present-Day Implications

 

The characteristic of a true Christian in this passage is having the Holy Spirit in his life.  This is one of the most fundamental aspects of being a Christian.  Without God's Spirit living in you, you are not a Christian.  Belief alone, saves no one.  You must, therefore, seriously ask yourself if the Holy Spirit has ever come into your life.  When He does enter your life, He, and only He, is God's legal seal that proves you to be a valid, born-again, believer.  This is the meaning of what Paul said, in Ephesians 1:13.  He said this:

 

"In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed."

 

As I have said earlier in this commentary, the word "seal" in the above verse means an authenticating seal of approval, like a lawyer would use when authenticating a document to be legitimate. 

 

It is my opinion that much of the western-world, Evangelical church has become weak with respect to holding to the theology of a true Christian being one who has the Holy Spirit living within him.  Evangelicals tend to equate believing in Jesus with receiving the Holy Spirit into their lives.  These two actions are not the same.  I explain this in my book entitled "Revisiting Pentecost."  Believing, or trusting Jesus, is an action taken by us with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Receiving the Spirit of God in our lives can occur only by an action taken by God as He wills.        

 

Beyond the Holy Spirit's entrance into your life, John gives a few other character traits of a real Christian.  A real believer is one who confesses, which means one who agrees with God.  A real believer is also one who will purify himself, do good works, and love his brothers and sisters in Christ.  Will we be perfect in these character traits?  I think we would all agree that the answer to that question is, "no."  However, inherent in the true believer is the desire to purify himself, do good works, and love the Christian brotherhood.  These traits will be in the believer because, by virtue of becoming a new creation in Christ, he has become those character traits.

 

It is important for us to understand that the love of God that was seen and demonstrated in Jesus' earthly life was intended to find its completion in you and me as Christians.  It is what being a Christian is all about.  It is fundamental in the process of representing Jesus to the culture in which we live.  Our acts of love and service for Jesus will be judged by Jesus when we meet him face to face.  Having an understanding of this future reality should make us think seriously about doing the will of God right now.  The Christian life is not about just being a Christian; it is doing the works of a Christian.  It is expressing in real time who we have become, which is a brand new creation in Christ.       

 

 

 

 

Lesson 18

(1 John 5:1 - 12)

 

The Text

 

1 - Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him.  This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands.  For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands.  And his commands are not a burden, because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.  Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?  Jesus Christ — he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood.  And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood — and these three are in agreement. If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son.  10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself.  The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about his Son.  11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

My Commentary

 

Verse 1

 

"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him." 

 

It is vitally important to understand what the word "believes" means in this verse, and throughout the New Testament.  The Greek noun "pistis" is translated in the English New Testament as "faith," "trust," "belief," and other such related words.  The Greek verb "pisteuo" is translated in our English New Testament as "to believe," "to trust," and other such related verbs.  Whether these words are nouns or verbs, the essential meaning of the Greek words is "trust," or "to trust."  They do not mean merely giving mental assent or acknowledging.  One can acknowledge that Jesus is divine but such an acknowledgement is not what the Biblical view of faith or believe means.  Faith and believe mean "to trust," as in, "I trust my life with Jesus."  Trusting your entire life with Jesus is not just believing in His existence as the divine Son of God.  Mentally believing in the divinity of Jesus is a prerequisite to Biblical faith, and is a first step in handing your life over to Him in a trusting relationship, but it is not the indicator of having divine life.  One cannot be born of God by simply acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ.  

 

The verb tense of the word "believes" is important.  It is a present Greek participle.  Being a participle puts the emphasis on one who by his very nature, by virtue of the new creation in Christ that he has become, is trusting that Jesus is the Christ.  He is not someone who occasionally believes or trusts, or attempts to trust.  He is not one who is simply believing in his head, or acknowledging with his intellect that Jesus is the Christ. 

 

The next verbal phrase says, "has been born of God."  The verb "has been born" is a Greek present perfect verb.  That means that the one John was writing about was born of God in the past, and because of that fact, is still born of God and still trusts in God in the present, when John wrote this letter. The only way that one can have by nature, a true trusting relationship with Jesus, is to have been born again of God.  That trusting nature is an indication of having received the Holy Spirit.

 

It is the one who trusts Jesus with his life who will be born of God.  Such trust needs the assistance of the Holy Spirit in one's life.  Significantly, anyone can take steps, with the help of the Holy Spirit, of putting trust in Jesus without yet having received the Holy Spirit into his life to be born again of God. Taking steps of trust does not mean that someone is a Christian, in biblical terms, yet.  Being born of God, or, being born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus, in John 3, is when the Holy Spirit comes into one's life. 

 

John ends this verse by telling his readers that anyone who loves (agape - sacrificial loves) the Father loves those who are born of God, who are his brothers and sisters in Christ.  The "everyone who loves," is a present participle, and speaks about the ones who, by virtue of who they have become, are lovers.  John said that such lovers will love the brotherhood of believers.  This is fundamental for the Body of Christ, the church, to be functioning as it is meant to function.   

 

When one is born of God, you might say that he is born into the family of God.  You cannot separate the two.  You cannot be born into God without being born into His family.  You cannot be a member of His family without being born of God.  This is one Biblical truth that is sadly lacking in today's western-world church.  Where it is lacking and not seen to be in practise, I believe that the family of God might not exist.                                  

 

Verse 2

 

"This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands."

 

All of the verbs in this verse are the present tense.  If a person, in present time, claims to love God's children, his or her brothers and sisters in Christ, we know that claim to be true when he or she loves God and obeys His commands.  Of course, Jesus linked the love of God with the love of brothers and sisters, when He spoke of the two great commandments.  Luke 10:27 says this: 

 

"He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.'"

 

Love of God and love of others go hand in hand.  Both Jesus and John said that the two cannot be separated.  If you love God, you will love the brotherhood of believers.  If you do not love the brotherhood of believers, you don't love God.  It is not difficult to understand.

 

Verse 3

 

"For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands.  And his commands are not a burden,"

 

There is nothing difficult about this verse.  It reminds me of two things Jesus told His disciples.  The first one is found in John 14:15.  It reads:   

 

"If you love me, you will keep my commands."

 

According to Jesus, one who loves Him will do as He says.  It is for this reason that I have often said that saying you love Jesus is a serious statement, because once you say that, people will be watching you to see if you obey Him.  Obedience is one proof that you love Jesus. 

 

The second thing John's statement reminds me of is what Jesus said, in Matthew 11:30.  He said this:

 

"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

 

Obeying Jesus is a yoke we have to bear.  Jesus did not say that we as Christians do not have a yoke, or responsibilities to carry out and perform.  Jesus was not saying that we can sit back and take it easy.  The word "yoke" suggests work.  An ox wears a yoke so he can effectively work.  Christians have a job to do, but Jesus said that this job was not a burden.  I suggest, then, that if you feel it is a great burden to do what Jesus has asked you to do, then you have a problem.  Either you have misheard Jesus, or you are not in the position you should be in as a Christian to do God's will. 

 

Too many times I have noted that the work of the Lord seems to be a burden to some, but Jesus said it wasn't.  One who is in the right place, in right relationship with Jesus, will not find it a burden to obey and serve Him.  For example, if Jesus asks you to teach His word, then you are probably a teacher by nature.  Jesus would not ask you to do something that you are not qualified to do.  If He asks you to do anything in obedience to Him, He will provide what is necessary for the work to be done.  You can count on that.  In that sense of the word, obedience to Jesus, in that which He wants you to do, will not be burdensome.  However, obedience may come with a struggle.  Our flesh will at times struggle with doing what Jesus wants it to do, but once the struggle is over obedience becomes a joy.

 

Jesus Himself struggled with obedience in the garden just prior to His death on the cross, but, once He overcame the struggle, He freely, and gladly, went to the cross in obedience to His Father.  Once the fight was over, He carried out the task ahead of Him in confidence. 

 

 All of the above being said, this does not mean that serving Jesus will not have its tough times.  The apostle Paul lived a life with many trials, but still, in the midst of the tough times, he carried his yoke with a thankful heart. 

                 

Verse 4

 

"because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world.  This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith."

 

John said here that the one "who has been born of God conquers the world."   The word "world" refers to one's surrounding culture. 

 

Note the verbal phrase "has been born."  The verb tense is one that John has not used much in his letter.  It is a perfect passive participle.  Here is what that means.  Perfect is a past action with present-day results.  The past action referred to here would be the action of being born of God, being born again of the Spirit, as Jesus put it, in John 3:3 to 5.  A participle is a combination of both a noun and a verb.  It not only speaks of an action but it speaks of that action being performed by one, who by his very nature, is a doer of that action.  In this sense, the one who has been born again of the Spirit in past time, is presently a born-again one.  As Paul put it, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he is a new creation in Christ.  He doesn't just do things Christians are to do, he does those things because by his very nature he is a doer of those things. 

A passive verb is an action that someone does to you.  You are not doing the action.  The action being done to John's readers here is that in past time, the Holy Spirit came into John's readers' lives.  At that point, they were born again of the Spirit.  It was not something John's readers did.  It was all from God.

 

John was saying that everyone who is a present-day born-again one will conquer the sinful culture in which he lives, preventing it from being influential in his life.  If he does not conquer, then you can question if he has ever been born again of the Spirit.  Again, this does not mean there will not be any struggle in the process of conquering. There certainly will be a struggle, but eventually, the struggle will end, and conquering will take place.

 

The verb "that has conquered" in this verse is another Greek verb tense that John also has not used much in his letter.  It is an aorist active participle.  An aorist verb refers to a one time action that has taken place in the past.  Active means that the subject involved is doing the action.  The action is not being done to it.  A participle puts the emphasis on the one doing the action by virtue of his nature, not just the action.  In short, John was thinking about the victory that conquered the world in past time because, by its very nature, it was a conqueror.  Faith is not something that only occasionally conquers.  His readers' faith had already conquered the world because that was the nature of their true faith.  This was meant to be an encouragement to John's readers who were under pressure from the heretics to conform to their heresies.  John might well have been saying that his readers had conquered the world of the heretics because of their true faith.

 

Verse 5

 

"Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 

 

Both "the one who conquers" and "the one who believes" are present participles.  This emphasizes the one who, by his new nature in Christ, is both a conqueror and one who trusts his life with Jesus in the process of conquering the world.  John was not just thinking about the action of conquering and believing, or trusting.  He was thinking of one being a conqueror and a believer, right then in present-time as he penned this letter.     

 

Verse 6

 

"Jesus Christ — he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood.  And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth."

 

This has been one very controversial and well-debated verse over the last nineteen hundred years.  There have been various interpretations to just what the words "water and blood" mean.  Some suggest these words are an allusion to the Old Testament Law of Moses references to water that washed the priests and blood that covered sin.  Others suggest it speaks of the water and blood that flowed from Jesus' body on the cross.  See John 19:34.  Still others suggest it has something to do with communion, the Lord's Supper.  These are just a few ways in which people have attempted to understand John's statement. 

 

Here is how I understand it, at least at the present moment.  I think that water could refer to Jesus' baptism, in water, that initiated His earthly ministry.  I think the blood might well refer to His blood that was shed on the cross that was both the goal of His earthly ministry and, in one sense of the word, the conclusion of His earthly ministry. 

 

If what I have said is the proper interpretation, it would fit into the context of why John was writing this letter.  The heretics, that were attempting to lead the Christians astray with their false teaching about Jesus, believed that Jesus was not divine.  They believed that what they called "the Christ spirit" came on Jesus at His water baptism and then left Him just prior to His death on the cross.  John could have been refuting this teaching by saying that Jesus death, the shedding of His blood, was part of the divine calling on His life. 

 

I do not normally make a major point over a word like "by," but this time I will because others have.  The word "by" suggests the means by which Jesus was anointed as Christ.  He passed by, or through, both baptism and death, proving He was in fact the Christ.   

 

The verb in this verse; "[Jesus] is the one" is an aorist participle.  An aorist verb is a past action.  A participle emphasizes one doing the action because of his nature to do the action.  John said that "Jesus Christ is the one who came."  Jesus came, at one specific time in past history, and, when He came, He was the Christ, or, He was divine.  He did not become divine when He was baptized in water.  This fact should be clear.  Jesus always was, and still is, divine.   

 

John said that "the Spirit is the one who testifies."  The verb, “who testifies” is a present participle.  The Holy Spirit at the time John wrote was currently testifying of Jesus' divinity because by His very nature of being truth He was a testifier.  I believe the Spirit, because of His nature, testified also when Jesus was baptized in water when, like a dove, He descended upon Him.  See John 1:32.     

 

There are many beliefs about what John meant by the water and the blood, in this verse.  Whatever one might believe, only those to whom he wrote his letters most likely really knew what he meant.  It probably had something to do with the finer details of the false teaching of the heretics.                 

 

Verse 7

 

"For there are three that testify:"

 

Anyone who reads verse 7 in the King James Bible will notice a major difference from what he or she reads in the CSB or any other newer version of the Bible.  The KJV reads this way:

 

"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

 

The fact of the matter, supported by most all scholars, is that verse 7 was not written by John.  It was first introduced into John's letter in a fourth-century Latin text.  That text was not the Vulgate.  The Vulgate is the fourth century Latin version of the Bible that was the main text of the Bible for centuries and is the text of Catholicism.   The first appearance of verse 7 in a Greek text was in the eleventh and twelfth century.  In those texts it was a side note that was added in the margin.  It was not a part of the original text.    

It is interesting to note that, over the couple of hundreds of years of debate over the doctrine of the Trinity, roughly from 400 to 600 BC, the debate did not include this verse.  It did not include this verse because there was no verse to include in the debate.  There are no quotes from this verse because it did not exist.  One would think that if this verse could be found in any Greek manuscript prior to 300 BC it would have been quoted to defend the doctrine of the Triune nature of God, but it was never quoted.

 

This verse found its way into the King James Bible because Erasmus (born 1469 - died 1536) was pressured by the Trinitarian religious establishment to insert it into the third edition of His Greek New Testament, from which the King James Bible was translated.            

 

Verse 8

 

"the Spirit, the water, and the blood — and these three are in agreement."

 

Your understanding of the words "water" and "blood," as discussed above, will determine your understanding of this verse.  The Holy Spirit is obviously in agreement, and I think the word "agreement" is in reference to Jesus being the Christ.  John also said that the water and the blood are in agreement.  As I said earlier, as the water and blood refer to the testimony of Jesus' divinity in His being the Christ, then the water and blood are certainly in agreement. 

       

Verse 9

 

"If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son."  

 

In this verse John wrote about God's testimony, concerning Jesus being the Christ, as being more important than man's testimony.  God's testimony was spoken when the voice from heaven confirmed Jesus to be His Son, at Jesus' baptism in water.  Matthew 3:17 says:

 

"And a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased."

 

Whether the apostle John actually saw Jesus baptized in water, saw the descent of the Spirit, and heard the heavenly voice, is debatable.  Whatever the case, he was close enough to the event that he certainly knew about it and understood its significance. 

 

I remind you at this point that John the apostle is not John the Baptist who baptized Jesus in water.  These two John's were two distinct and different men. 

 

John spoke about accepting "human testimony."  He might have been thinking in general terms here.  It was common practice, as it is today, in both the Greco-Roman culture, and in Jewish culture, that the truth of anything was to be established by the testimony of witnesses.  If human testimony to the truth of anything was important, then God's testimony about Jesus cannot be denied.  Jesus was in fact the Christ, and God in human form.    

 

Verse 10

 

"The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself.  The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about his Son."

 

The verbs "the one who believes," and, "the one who does not believe," are present participles.  We have two types of individuals here.  One is the believer and one is the non-believer.  The emphasis is on who these two individuals are.  The believer naturally believes while the non-believer naturally does not believe.   

 

The one who believes does not simply acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God.  He, by virtue of becoming a new creation in Christ, believes, or, trusts, his entire life with Jesus as the Son of God.  The one who, by virtue of who he is, which is a non-believer, cannot trust his life with Jesus.  It is an impossibility for him to do so.

 

John said this non-believer calls God a liar because he has rejected the heavenly testimony that confirmed Jesus to be the Christ, and the divine Son of God.   

 

Verse 11

 

"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

 

The verb "has given" in the phrase "God has given" is a Greek aorist verb.  This means that in one specific past moment, God provided eternal life for each and every human being.  The specific moment of time was when He drew His last breath on the cross. 

 

We should understand the term "eternal life," as John used it throughout his writings, as living forever in the immediate presence of God.  I believe the Bible teaches that once a person is born into this world, he has an eternal, spiritual, element to him.  Everyone will live beyond this life in some kind of eternal existence, either in the presence of God, or not in His presence in a place called the Lake of Fire .          

 

Verse 12

 

"The one who has the Son has life.  The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

 

Both "the one who has" and "the one who does not have" are present Greek participles.  The one who has Jesus, the Son, in his life by virtue of becoming a new creation in Christ, has life because Jesus is the author of life.  I might suggest that it is also more productive and fulfilled life now, as well as life in the presence of God throughout eternity.  The one, by virtue of who he is, who does not have the Son, misses out on real life now and throughout eternity. 

 

Review

 

John has said a lot, in these twelve verses.  The first thing I would like to say is this:  do not be alarmed that the King James Bible has inserted a verse, into the text, that should not be there.  Do not let this destroy your faith in the Bible.   The doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture that has been well accepted in Christian theology for centuries means this: the original writings, which we do not have, were inspired by the Spirit of God, but copies and translations of those original manuscripts are not inspired. 

 

When the King James New Testament was written and published in 1611, there were only six Greek manuscripts that could be used in the process of translation.  Due to unearthing more manuscripts and partial manuscripts, we have close to six thousand texts from which we can now translate the New Testament.  That, along with a much better understanding of Koine Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, makes our translations more accurate. 

 

It is a difficult task to translate documents, from an ancient past, that were written over several hundred years, and written in languages that existed in cultures foreign to us.  I am sure God understands our dilemma, and being a loving and grace-filled God, as John said He is, He will have mercy on us as we attempt to understand His word the best we can.

 

One of John's main points, in this section, is that the one who is really born again of the Holy Spirit will obey Jesus' commands, will overcome the world, and will love the brotherhood of believers.  He differentiates being a born-again-of-the-Spirit believer from being someone who simply, mentally, acknowledges the divinity of Jesus.  It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in one's life that makes him a true child of God, a true believer.                    

 

 

Present-Day Implications     

 

The characteristics of a true Christian that John stated in this section are first and foremost, that he has been born again of the Spirit of God.  Therefore, he will love his brothers and sisters in Christ, overcome the world, and obey Jesus' commands.  He will not live a lifestyle of sin, even though he, as one with a sinful nature, will commit sin. 

 

You might want to consider your faith in Jesus in light of 1 John 5:7 not being written by John.  Does this put stress on your trust in Jesus?  This is something that all Christians should come to grips with because this verse is not the only verse in the Bible that is questionable.  Any Christian who wants to educate himself in Biblical thought has to deal, sooner or later, with some textual difficulties.  You cannot avoid it.  You might as well come to grips with it now, and in so doing, confirm your trust in Jesus to be valid trust.    

 

One Biblical truth we see in this section, and in previous sections, is the importance of the Holy Spirit in your life.  This question must be asked.  Have I received the Holy Spirit into my being, or, am I just acknowledging what I read in the Bible to be true?  Acknowledgment of Biblical truth saves no one.  Mentally agreeing with the Bible's claim that Jesus is divine, does not mean you have the Holy Spirit in your being.  Remember, Romans 8:9 states that if you do not have the Spirit in your life, you do not belong to God.  Getting this all-important Biblical truth correct in your life is basic to who you are, or who you claim to be. 

 

Our twenty-first-century Evangelical church, at least in my opinion, has devalued Biblical faith to mere mental acceptance, and has, along the way, set aside the importance of the Holy Spirit living within a person.  It is up to you to make sure where you stand on these vital issues.  If you are struggling with loving the Christian brotherhood, struggling to overcome the world, and struggling to obey Jesus, it might well be that you do not have the Holy Spirit in your life.  If this is the case you are not a Christian.  Before you do anything else, you must have this settled in your life.           

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 19

(1 John 5:13 - 21)

 

The Text

 

13 - I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.  14 This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  15 And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him. 16 If anyone sees a fellow believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will give life to him — to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death. There is sin that leads to death.  I am not saying he should pray about that.  17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that doesn’t lead to death.  18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.  19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one.  20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one — that is, in his Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.  21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 13

 

"I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." 

 

To begin, what John said here confirms that he was writing to Christians.  You will recall that, in 1 John 2:18 and 19, the false believers left the community of believers.  They went out on their own, leaving the true Christians to themselves.  The fact that John was writing to Christians helps us understand certain parts of John's letter, especially 1 John 1:5 through 2:2.  You can refer back to my comments on that section.

 

What John said here, in verse 12, also confirms my point that this letter was meant to re-affirm to John's Christian readers that they were indeed true believers, possessing eternal life.  They needed this re-affirmation because of the unsettling havoc that would have been caused by the heretics and their false teaching that afflicted the church.

 

Note that these believers would not have eternal life just at some future date.  John said, right then in their present time, they possessed eternal life.  Why?  It was because they had the eternal Spirit of God living within them.  Look at how Jesus worded this, in John 5:24.

 

"Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life."

     

Jesus said that the true believer has already passed from death unto life, eternal life that exists now and in the eternal age.  Eternal life, then, for the believer, is not just a future expectation. 

 

Verse 14

 

"This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." 

 

What John said here is vitally important, especially for those who believe that if you have faith in Jesus then all of your prayers should be answered.  For example, those of the Hyper Faith Movement believe that if you have faith to be healed of an illness you will be healed.  If you are not healed, then you do not have genuine faith.  I am certainly not of that persuasion. 

 

This verse specifically states that what you ask for must be in accordance with God's will.  There are also other verses like this one that those of the Hyper Faith Movement miss.  If you are called to serve Jesus in some capacity, which all of us are, then He will give you whatever you ask for that will help you carry out His will.  John's statement does not mean we can ask, and expect to receive, all that our hearts desire.

 

Throughout John's gospel account he quotes Jesus a number of times saying that if you ask Him or the Father anything "in my name," it will be done.  John 15:16 says this:

 

"You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you."

 

In this verse, we are told that the asking is to be made in the name of Jesus.  "In the name of Jesus" means that when you go out to represent Him and His name to the world then whatever you need in His service will be given you upon your request.  The asking is in conjunction with representing the good name of Jesus to the world.  Among other verses, you can also read John 15:7; 16:23, 24, and 26.

 

There are other verses that speak about asking and receiving that have no qualifying terms.  They do not tell you to ask in Jesus' name, or to ask according to God's will.  Luke 16:9 is one such verse.  It reads:

 

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you.  Seek, and you will find.  Knock, and the door will be opened to you."

 

When reading the above verse and others like it, you must consider all of the "ask" verses found throughout the New Testament when attempting to understand what we as Christians should be asking for.  Asking for material possessions, for example, to feed our hedonistic lifestyle, is not what we should be asking for. 

 

The verb "ask" in the phrase, "if we ask anything." is what is called a present Greek subjunctive verb.  This verb tense suggests a continuous, present time, action of asking.  It does not mean asking just one time.  This tells me that at times we must persevere in our asking.  It may take time before the Lord decides to grant our request. 

 

Something that is lost among many western-world Christians these days is the idea that we must continue to pray.  Paul said that we must pray without ceasing, or without stopping, in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.  Beyond that, there is what Christians call "interceding in prayer."  Such intercession requires much time and serious prayer as we focus on the details of our prayer.       

 

John said that if we continue to ask, and if we ask in accordance with God's will, we can be confident that sooner or later we will get what we ask for, unless there is something in our lives that is hindering God from answering our prayer, or unless for some reason the Lord prefers not to answer our prayer in the way we might expect Him to.     

 

Verse 15

 

"And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him."

 

John made it clear that if we know, in present time, that God hears our prayers that we are continually asking, we know that we have, in present time what we ask for.  I use the words "continually asking" because once again the Greek verb "ask," as in the last verse, is a present subjunctive verb.  This verb suggests a continual asking, not just a one-time asking. 

 

If, therefore, we continually ask according to God's will, knowing that He hears us, we can be confident that we have, present tense verb, what we have asked for.  Here is some of the thinking of the Hyper Faith people.  They say that if you really have faith, then you, in present time, already have what you have asked for.  For this reason, then, you should act as if you already have the answer.  This would mean that if you need healing from cancer, you should act like you are already healed of the cancer, even though it would appear the cancer is still in your body.  It would mean that if you were blind, you should act as if you are sighted.  How you would go about doing that is beyond my capability of thinking.  This way of thinking makes no common sense, let alone any Biblical sense.   

 

I believe what John is saying is this: asking in God's will provides the confidence that you can trust God for the answer, because, according to the Greek verb tense, the asking is a continuous asking,  that suggests that you have not yet received in physical reality what you initially asked for.  You keep asking, being confident the answer will come.  Your confidence is, thus, in knowing you are asking in God's will.  Your confidence is not merely based on the faith you think you have.                   

 

Verse 16

 

"If anyone sees a fellow believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will give life to him — to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should pray about that." 

 

Speaking about asking God for something, John gives an example of what can be asked for in this verse, but along the way, we have a problem that is difficult to solve.  What John said here has caused much discussion, debate, and questioning over the centuries.  I am not sure that I can end the confusion.

 

First of all, the verb "committing" in the phrase "committing a sin" is a present Greek participle, and, as I have been saying throughout this commentary, a present participle emphasizes one committing an action based on who he is.  A sinner sins because he is a sinner.  Because the verb in this verse is a present participle it, thus, suggests that the person is sinning because that is who he is.  His very nature is one who sins.  He, in fact, is living a lifestyle of sin.  That makes sense, but what does not make sense, is that John called this person "a brother."  I have been saying in this commentary that a true Christian does not live a lifestyle of sin, so how can I say that this brother in the Lord is living a lifestyle of sin?

 

It might well be that this truly Christian brother is beginning to live a lifestyle of sin that has been foreign to who he has been.  He might not be living a lifestyle of all sorts of sins, but maybe just one specific sin.  It is my observation that there have been some true believers who have fallen, for one reason or another, into a habit of a specific sin, which needs to be repented of and walked away from.  John might well be saying, "Pray for that brother." 

 

John said that God would give that brother life.  God would bring the brother out of the sin and bring him back into the light of God which produces life in the believer.  Sin disrupts the good fellowship we have with God, and thus, takes away from the life of God that is resident in the believer.  When the sin is removed, life returns.    

 

The next problematic phrase in this verse concerns the sin that does not lead to death and the sin that does lead to death.  This too has confused many over the centuries, and again, I do not know if I can provide a satisfactory answer to what these sins are. 

 

I do believe that all sins are forgivable, except for one.  That one is unrepented unbelief or the unrepented rejection of Jesus and what He has provided us on the cross.  Over the years I have called this sin the sin against the Holy Spirit.  I believe Jesus spoke of this sin, in Matthew 12:31.  He said this:

 

"Therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven."

 

This verse too has been well debated.  The question is always asked.  What is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?  I could be wrong, but I have always believed that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is forever saying no to the Holy Spirit when He calls you to repentance and faith that would lead to His entrance into your life.  It makes sense that this sin cannot be forgiven.  If it could be forgiven, or, if the forgiveness for that sin had been paid for on the cross, then all are saved. It would nullify the necessity of faith for righteousness.  God could have simply declared that all are forgiven whether all believe or not.  That is not the case.  Therefore the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit leads to death, which I understand here to mean eternal death.  This understanding seems to fit into what John is saying here.                 

 

All other sins a person can commit are forgivable and do not have to lead to death.  As Christians we do sin.  1 John 2:1 made that clear.  If one continues to commit one sin, but not to live a lifestyle of sin, then that person needs our prayers because continuing in that one sin disrupts the fellowship that one has with His Lord.  

 

Why did John say that we should not pray for the one committing a sin that leads to death?  At the moment, I have no credible answer.  Although many have attempted to give their answers, I have yet to find one that satisfies me.    

    

Verse 17

 

"All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that doesn’t lead to death." 

 

John said that "all unrighteousness is sin."  This is yet another, secondary definition of sin.  The primary definition of sin is "to miss the mark of God's righteousness in one's life" because that is the New Testament's usage of the Greek word "hamartia," that is translated into English as "sin."   

 

Once again John said that there is a sin that does not lead to death.  Allow me to suggest that the death spoken of here might be eternal death, being sent to the Lake of Fire .  Being nasty to a friend would be a sin not leading to eternal death.  That sin, if you are a believer, has already been forgiven upon your repentance and having faith in Jesus.  Rejecting Jesus' salvation, is a sin that leads to eternal death. 

 

What John said in this verse is often quoted as a proof text for those who believe that a Christian can lose his salvation, but whether John is implying that, is highly debatable.

 

Verse 18

 

"We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him." 

 

Verse 18 adds to our confusion.  "Everyone who is born of God does not sin."  The verb "born" is a present Greek participle.  This means that John is talking about the one who, by virtue of who is, is now in Christ.  He says that this one does not sin.  Well, just a couple verses back John said that if a brother does sin, pray for him.  We have an apparent discrepancy.  But the verb tense for "sin" is present indicative active, as we have seen earlier, in 1 John 3:5 and 6.  The words "does not sin" thus means "does not continuously sin."  Because of this, most teachers say that the brother spoken of here does not live a lifestyle of sin, but he does, like all of us, sin on occasion.

 

The one comforting thing John said here about the Christian is that Satan cannot touch him.  The Greek word "hapto" is translated here as "touch."  This word means "to fasten."  In other words, the evil one, Satan, cannot fasten himself to a true believer.  This tells me that a real Christian cannot be possessed by either Satan or a demon.  Can a demon attempt to influence a Christian?  I believe he can, but a demon cannot fasten himself to a true believer.  He could, however, fasten himself to a non-believer.     

 

Verse 19

 

"We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one." 

 

The pronoun "we," in this verse, refers to John and his Christian readers.  Again, this statement re-affirms that John's readers do belong to God.  If you have read this commentary from the beginning you will know that John's readers were in need of some re-affirmation of their faith because of the unsettling heresies that were disrupting the church.

 

John said that "the whole world is under the sway of the evil one."  I do not believe things have changed since John's day.  The world is still under the sway or influence of the devil. 

 

The Greek word "poneros" is translated here as "sway."  This word suggests that the devil is actively involved in all aspects of the culture of the world.  Jesus confirmed this when He said that Satan is "the prince of this world."  Jesus called the devil the prince of this world several times.  See John 12:31, 14:30, and 16:11.          

 

Verse 20

 

"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one — that is, in his Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life."

 

John said that the "Son of God has come and has given us understanding."  Jesus came in the flesh decades prior to John writing this letter.  The Son of God who once came to this planet, came later also into the lives of John's readers, and, at that point in time, began to give his readers understanding. 

 

The understanding that John was speaking of is in connection with his readers knowing "the true one," who is Jesus.  John 14:6 states that Jesus is truth.  I understand that to mean that Jesus is the ultimate, divine, universal, eternal truth of all there is.  This would be in direct contrast to the false Jesus that was promoted by the false teachers.  There is something inherent in the true believer, because of the Holy Spirit residing in him, that causes the believer to be convinced of Jesus being the one and only universal truth.  Those in the world around us are simply clueless in this respect because they do not have the Holy Spirit residing in them. 

 

John specifically said, in closing this letter, that Jesus is the true God and eternal life.  This was to be a re-affirmation to his readers that the false Jesus espoused by the heretics was a figment of the heretics’ imagination.  Understanding that Jesus is God is basic to being a Christian.  If you do not embrace this truth, you believe in a different Jesus.  You believe in a Jesus that does not exist.  You believe in a Jesus who can never save you.  

 

All life, including life in eternity, is life because Jesus, who was present in Genesis 1, is the author of life, whether human life, animal life, or plant life.            

 

Verse 21

 

"Little children, guard yourselves from idols."

 

John closed his letter with one simple admonition.  "Guard yourself from idols."  What idols John might have had in mind is speculative.  In context, I am not sure he was thinking of wood, stone, or gold statues.  He might well have been thinking of idols of false theology.  Replacing the truth of the gospel with the heresies of the day might well have been considered idol-worship by John.  

 

 

Review

 

There are clearly some difficult issues to work through in this section of John's letter.  What the sin that leads unto death is, and what the sin that does not lead to death is, have been well debated. At the present moment, I am unable to suggest an understanding to this that would satisfy most people. 

 

We do learn from this section of 1 John that we can expect to receive what we ask God for, if our asking is in accordance with His will and His name.  John's concept of asking God for anything is that we should ask for that which helps us do the will of God.  Asking for things that are based on our sinful lust is not what John had in mind.

 

John concluded with the present truth that the devil is indeed the prince of this present world, this present age, and he is so, except for the period of time of the millennium, unto the moment he is thrown into the Lake of Fire .  Revelation 19:20 says this:

 

"But the beast was taken prisoner, and along with it the false prophet, who had performed the signs in its presence. He deceived those who accepted the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image with these signs.  Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur."

     

Until the day Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire , he will always have influence in this world, except when Jesus rules during the millennium.  We will always have to contend with him, with his demonic agents, and, with those humans who are heavily influenced or possessed by him. 

 

John's last statement is the admonition to stay clear of idols.  I believe I can generalize the word "idols" by saying it means anything or anyone that would take the place of Jesus in our lives.  This admonishment, although written to John's readers, is valid for us today.

       

 

Present-Day Implications

 

The character quality of a true believer seen in this section is that he is one who asks his heavenly Father for those things that will help him do what God has asked him to do. 

 

The true believer is one who recognizes Satan to be the prince of this world and prepares himself for battle. 

 

You may never completely understand what John meant by sins that lead to death and sins that do not lead to death, but, if you are the true believer that John spoke of throughout this letter, then there is nothing for you to worry about.  Your sins have been forgiven, and to the best of your Holy-Spirit-enhanced ability, you live a righteous life.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Character Qualities of a True Christian

 

Throughout John's first letter he continually re-affirmed the character qualities that constituted the nature of a true Christian.  He did so because of any confusion his Christian readers might have had due to the heresies afflicting the church in John's day.  Here are the character qualities that were pointed out in John's first letter, and which we should see in our lives as Christians.

 

A true Christian is one who:

- walks in the light of God (1 John 1:7)

- has fellowship with the Christian brotherhood  (1 John 1:7)

- is cleansed from his sin by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7)

- is purified from unrighteousness (1 John 1:8)

- is forgiven of his sin (1 John 1:9)

- has Jesus deflect God's wrath from him when he sins (1 John 2:1 and 2)

- obeys Jesus (1 John 2:3)

- has God's love, that was demonstrated in the cross of Christ, completed, or made real, in his life (1 John 2:5)

- does not cause a brother or sister in Christ to stumble in his or her faith (1 John 2:10)

- knows God (1 John 2:13)

- overcomes Satan (1 John 2:13)

- has the word of God living in him (1 John 2:14)

- recognizes the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:19)

- has the anointing of the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20)

- knows the truth (1 John 2:20)

- has the anointing of the Spirit that helps him discern true and false teaching (1 John 2:27)

- knows that some day he will be like Jesus (1 John 3:2)

- does not live a lifestyle of sin (1 John 3:9)

- knows that if his heart condemns him, God is greater than his heart and knows all things (1 John 3:20)

- has confidence before God (1 John 3:21)

- receives from Jesus what he asks, when asked in the name and will of Jesus (1 John 3:22)

- knows that Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, lives in him (1 John 3:24)

- knows that the Holy Spirit in him is greater than the spirit of antichrist that is in the world (1 John 4:4)

- listens to what John has said in his letter (1 John 4:6)

- knows that Jesus is the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14)

- acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 4:15)

- knows he is born of God (1 John 5:1)

- loves the children of God (1 John 5:2)

- has eternal life living in him (1 John 5:13)

 

That is quite a long list.  Does this mean that all of these qualities must be perfectly working in your life to be a real Christian?  The answer is, "no."  We still have our human nature that fights against these character qualities.  Nevertheless, the degree to which these character traits are found in your life will be the degree to which you will know for sure that you are a real Christian.    

 

  

   

 

 

Closing Remarks

 

In Acts 20, verse 13 and following, we read about the apostle Paul's final farewell to the church elders at Ephesus , the city where John lived when he penned this letter.  Paul's final good-by to these elders was at least thirty-to-forty years prior to John writing his letter.  Paul admonished these men to care for the flock, the church, which the Holy Spirit asked them to care for.  He went on to warn them with this prediction, as seen in verse 29.  It reads: 

 

"I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock."

 

Paul's prediction came true.  The savage wolves that came in to destroy the flock of God were the false teachers, the heretics, that John was forced to confront in his day.  Those false teachers were savage wolves.  They had no concern for the community of believers John was helping to care for.  These heretics were only concerned with gaining more followers for themselves. 

 

I find it interesting that, some thirty or more years after Paul's prediction, John had to deal with a prophecy that Paul spoke to the elders at Ephesus .  It is something that few Bible teachers have ever commented on. 

 

Something else that interests me is found in Revelation 2:1 through 7.  Depending on your end-time theology, Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 are the chapters where we find Jesus speaking to seven specific communities of believers.  He was far from happy with those communities.  The first community of believers was located in Ephesus , where John lived.  It was this community of believers that John helped care for.  Jesus was not happy with these believers because they had lost their first love for Him.  For this reason Jesus told them the following in Revelation 2:5:

 

"Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.  Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent."

 

According to Revelation 1:20, the word "lampstand" is in reference to a church, a Holy-Spirit-lit witness to the world.  These words of admonition must have been quite disturbing to John.  The very church he had dedicated his life to care for might disappear because its members had lost their original love they had for Jesus.  I cannot begin to imagine how John must have felt when he heard Jesus speak these words.  

Just when John wrote his first letter in relation to when he penned the book of Revelation is not known.  The majority opinion, and for good reason, is that the book of Revelation was written last, perhaps a number of years after John wrote his first letter. 

 

When John wrote his first letter, he seemed to have felt good about his readers' dedication and love for Jesus.  Just when they lost their love for Jesus is unknown.  Whenever that was, the admonition spoken by Jesus, in Revelation 2, needed to be heeded by them.  It also needs to be heeded by us, today.  We are no different than the Christians in Ephesus .  We, like them, have the same tendency to lose the love for Jesus we once had.  I believe it is for this reason many churches in the western-world have faded away and disappeared over the last few decades.      

 

Although it was not for a few centuries beyond the time John wrote this letter, the city of Ephesus fell into the hands of the Muslims, thus extinguishing the lampstand of witness the church at Ephesus had.  Obviously, at some point in history prior to the Muslim invasion of Asia, the church of Ephesus did not regain its first love for Jesus.  This historical fact should be a prophetic warning to the church at large, and especially today's western-world, church.  Any expression of church, when it loses its first love, will sooner or later, lose the light of the Holy Spirit's presence.  The only thing that will be left is an empty shell of what was once a church, and an empty shell of a church is meaningless.  It is not a Biblical church.    

 

In closing, what we read, in 1 John, although specifically directed to Christians in and around Ephesus nineteen hundred years ago, has present-day importance for us.  Many pastors today think that 1 John is especially important for new Christians to understand.  In a Biblically-illiterate western-world Christian church, what can be learned from 1 John is for all believers, not just for new believers.

 

John re-affirmed the faith of those to whom he wrote.  He wanted them to make sure they had repented, handed their lives over to Jesus, and received the Holy Spirit into their lives, so they could live in personal, supportive, and functional relationships in the local expression of the Body of Christ.  

 

I like how John used the Greek present participle verb tense as it applied to his Christian readers.  A participle is a half noun and half verb.  It is for this reason that a present Greek participle emphasizes the action a person does based on who he is.  It is not just emphasizing the action as a normal verb would do.  As Christians, then, and this may sound strange, we should view ourselves as Christian present participles.  It is what Paul was talking about, when, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he said that the Christian is "a new creation in Christ."  Who we once were, we are no longer.  Based on our new-creation status, we live the life of that new creation that we are.  We do the things Christians do, not because we need to, but, because that is just who we are.       

 

I hope and pray that what I have written in this commentary has been beneficial for you.  If I have helped you in any way, whether big or small, to understand this portion of our Bible, I will be both blessed and happy.   

 

I leave you with what the apostle Paul said to the Corinthian believers.  His instruction is relevant to all who call themselves Christians today.  1 Corinthians 13:5 reads:

                   

"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.  Examine yourselves.  Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you? ​— ​unless you fail the test."     

 

 

 

   

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